Karin Fossum - The Caller

He stood in the doorway to his room, and instantly he knew something was missing.

Bleeding Heart was gone.

The empty cage confused him. He examined it carefully, putting his hand inside and lifting the little plastic maze. But no guinea pig emerged. He got down on all fours and searched under his bed. He hunted behind the curtains, under his desk and pillows, and the rubbish bin in the corner. He turned and walked, soundlessly, into the living room. His mother sat in a chair with a stack of bills. She glanced up.

‘What have you done with him?!’ he shouted. ‘Tell me now!’

She looked at him indifferently, then put her finger on a stack of yellow payment forms and made a tired face. ‘They’ll cut the electricity soon,’ she mumbled.

‘Where’s Bleeding Heart?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Do you mean the little rat? He got loose. I can’t have rats running around the house. He chewed on the cords and all kinds of things, and that can cause a short circuit and burn the whole house down. But I guess you’d probably like that.’

Johnny began to tremble from head to toe. After years of bullying and neglect, he’d grown rather thick-skinned. But this was too much for him.

‘He didn’t get loose,’ he screamed. ‘He can’t get out of the cage on his own. There’s a latch on the door. You just went and took him, that’s what you did. You took him. You need to tell me where he is, now!’

She gathered her payment forms, got up and shoved them in a drawer. Then she looked at him over her shoulder. ‘Well, what should we do with a dead rat? What do you think, Johnny?’

He knew what she’d done. Standing a few metres away, his fists clenched, he understood that she’d killed the most precious thing he owned. Somehow. And it made him angry. He got so angry that his thoughts ran to horrible places. I’ll put the army knife into your spine, he thought, so you’ll be paralysed in both legs and you’ll have to crawl on your elbows while I sit in a chair and tell you how you’re going to die. He wondered exactly where in the back he’d have to stab her to slice the right nerve.

‘I put it in an empty milk carton,’ she said suddenly.

He breathed deeply. Moved a few steps closer, opening and closing his fists. ‘And where’s the milk carton? Is it in the rubbish? Are you telling me Bleeding Heart is in the rubbish?’

‘Yes,’ she confessed. ‘In the bin for food waste. I won’t have rats here,’ she repeated. ‘It smells of them. It smells of piss from that cage, Johnny!’

Quietly Johnny Beskow made his way out of the house. Went down to the gate where the rubbish bins stood. He opened the bin and looked inside, and immediately he recognised the milk carton. She had folded it tight, and his hands trembled when he opened it. Bleeding Heart, sticky wet, was curled into a ball. She had drowned him. Maybe in the bathroom sink.

For a long time he held the wet fur ball. I can deal with almost anything, he thought. Year after year I’ve held my tongue. But the day is coming when I will get up and take my gruesome revenge. She doesn’t know it, but that day is very close. I just need the right moment. To hell with the consequences — life is a drag, and so is death. When I get my revenge people can do what they want and think what they want, I won’t care. That’s why I’m better than them.

He pulled himself away and strode to the back of the house, where he found an old rusty spade. He put the guinea pig on the grass and began to dig. Extremely focused, he dug a deep grave, laid the small animal inside and covered it with dirt. Then he found a stone and put it on top of the grave, like a heavy lid. I hope it’s deep enough, he thought, so the badgers don’t get you. He stood tall and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He was beaten, but he didn’t intend to stay down. He marched over to his moped, put on his helmet and drove on to the road.

Twenty minutes later he arrived at the shopping centre in Kirkeby. Because he liked breaking rules, he parked in a disabled space. Whenever Johnny could break a rule, he did so, and now he wished for nothing more than to be insufferable. After everything that had happened. He took the escalator up to the second floor and trudged into the pet shop. A girl behind the counter followed him with her eyes; she fingered some papers, stared at him for a moment and kept him under surveillance. First, Johnny went to the aquarium and admired the catfish. Then the girl strolled slowly towards him, long and stooped and swaying; she had large, heavy eyelids and long lashes. Her lower lip was very full, making him think of a camel.

‘Are you interested in fish?’

‘No,’ Johnny said. ‘I want a guinea pig. One with three colours, black, brown and white. A male. I don’t care how much it costs.’

‘We don’t have any guinea pigs,’ she said.

‘What? Not a single one?’

He wasn’t sure he had heard right. He was in a pet shop, and they didn’t have a guinea pig.

The camel headed towards a row of cages against the wall, pointed and showed him what she had to offer, which was a little bit of everything.

‘We have dwarf rabbits,’ she said temptingly, ‘and polecats and brown rats. And we have a large chinchilla, but it’s sort of boring — sleeps all day.’

Johnny Beskow hesitated. He didn’t want to go home without a new pet. So he studied the furry creatures with considerable interest.

‘And we have a hamster,’ she remembered. ‘It’s all by itself now. Its siblings have been sold.’ She opened one of the cages and lifted out a small champagne-coloured fur ball. ‘The hamster is great. It’s much smarter than a guinea pig. And really tame.’

He took the animal, and held it up to his cheek. ‘I see,’ he said, setting it back in its cage. He didn’t want to be hasty. He took his time. The rats were strong; they smelled like cloves, and were fast as lightning. One was an albino and had red eyes, like rubies. The chinchilla seemed aloof, didn’t even bother to blink, and the dwarf rabbits were for girls. He picked up the animals one by one, weighed them in his hands and held them up to his cheek. Thought long and hard.

‘The hamster,’ he said decisively and walked to the counter.

The camel followed with the little animal in her hand.

‘You’ll also need a number of things,’ she explained eagerly. ‘Cage. Toys. Food bowl and water bowl. You should get this vitamin supplement which you drip into the drinking water. And they like to make a nest for themselves. You can buy cotton rags at the petrol station next door, they don’t cost much.’ She held a little bottle with a dropper out to him. ‘Here are the vitamins. We also have a powder here, with minerals and such, which you sprinkle over his food every morning. For his bones. You shouldn’t be careless about such things.’

‘No!’ he objected. ‘Leave me alone. I already have a cage. I have everything I need, and I don’t have the money for all that stuff. Jesus, it’s only a hamster. I’m not running a hotel!’

She put the hamster in a box with holes. Squeezed her lips into a thin line and was affronted because he’d rejected her expertise.

But Johnny was content. He paid 250 kroner for the little devil, and left the shop with his new friend under his arm. If she drowns this one, I’ll bring a spider home, he thought.

Or a snake.

When he got home, his mother was wearing a dress.

It happened very rarely, so he stood staring into the kitchen. The dress was dark blue with a white ruche at the hem and, to be honest, resembled something from a bygone era. But it was a change, perhaps even an improvement. For in this outfit she acted completely differently. She wore high-heeled shoes with ankle straps, the heels resembling spools: narrow in the middle and fatter above and below. She had brushed her dark hair, and, at first glance, she could’ve passed for a woman with her life under control, a woman with a certain level of self-discipline, will and decisiveness. But her suffering was just as visible. The affliction, the alcoholism, could be seen in the fierce line of her mouth, the wronged look in her eyes, the trembling in her hands and unsteadiness of her gait. It was obvious she was hardened. She’d been unjustly treated and wasn’t responsible for her own situation; her alcoholism had been out of her control, just as people who are struck by lightning cannot control the lightning. She couldn’t have defended herself against it. She was a victim. She didn’t have a choice; she listened to her body, and her body wrenched her whenever the intoxication began to ebb. The discomfort, she couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t follow through, couldn’t please, couldn’t serve, couldn’t participate. She was a shipwreck, and she was sinking. But now she had put on a dress and was stone-cold sober, or at least that’s what it seemed to him. She had raised her sails. The goal, he thought as he observed her, is money. She tottered around in her high heels, and he held his breath when he saw how her ankles struggled to hold her weight, to keep her upright.