Карин Фоссум - The Whisperer

‘For the last few days that Elise was alive,’ he said, ‘I had a bed beside her in hospital. I didn’t sleep much, I just lay there listening to her breathing. She slept a lot. Then would open her eyes to check that I was still there, and doze off again, slipping in and out of consciousness. There were only a few centimetres between our beds, and even though the room was bare, with no sound or smell, just machines and tubes and stands, that is what we shared in those final hours. I heard her breathing, nothing more. In the last hour, she only inhaled once a minute. Her heart stopped, and started again, stopped and started, and that went on for quite a while. Then I heard nothing more. And I know it’s a strange thing to say, but I was so surprised, almost annoyed that she disappeared like that, and I couldn’t reach her any more. I somehow felt betrayed.’

‘But you remember that final breath?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what have you forgotten? What should you have remembered?’

‘The first night alone. I don’t remember it.’

‘But perhaps that’s because you slept,’ Ragna said. ‘And didn’t dream.’

‘I can’t forgive myself for that,’ he confessed. ‘That I slept. That I slept so heavily.’

‘But you were exhausted,’ she said. ‘Of course you slept. But then you woke up the next morning. And I’m sure you remember that morning.’

‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘I was the one who had betrayed her. I let her go too easily. While she lay in the morgue, I slept like a baby under a feather duvet.’

‘And you’re ashamed that you slept. So after that night, you didn’t sleep. You didn’t want to show such weakness again?’

‘You’re right.’

‘Do you sleep now?’

‘Yes, I do. And you?’

She nodded.

‘Yes, at last. For the first time in ages.’

She opened her arms and hands as though she had finally been set free and could breathe properly.

He told her that he visited Elise’s grave every Friday after work, and that he always had a candle with him.

‘A grave candle burns for a few hours,’ he said. ‘I keep an eye on the time. And when I go to bed at midnight, I know that it will burn out while I’m asleep. I don’t like to think about it going out.’

He changed the topic abruptly.

‘How do you foresee your future?’

‘I don’t think about the future,’ she replied. ‘The only people watching me now are the guards. And they’re very nice.’

‘And what you did,’ he said gravely. ‘Does it scare you?’

‘It was like falling over the edge,’ she whispered. ‘A natural and unavoidable consequence of a long series of events.’

‘But the moment it happened is a thing of the past,’ Sejer said, ‘and you’re in a completely different place? Are you still not horrified by what happened? Do you feel sorry for what you’ve done, do you wish you could undo it?’

‘I don’t think you understand,’ she whispered. ‘What happened had to happen. And now I’m here. Now, finally, I’m protected.’

She had never been able to decide about her parents’ grave, whether the plot they had been given was well positioned or not. They were buried behind the church, close to the wall, so they were protected from the wind and weather, and the damp that rose up from the river. At the same time they were out of sight and always in the shade. Also, the car park was behind the church and there was a fair amount of traffic, so the exhaust fumes had discoloured the wall; it was no longer red, more a dirty grey. If they had been buried in front of the church, overlooking the square, they would be bathed in sun on a fine day. But on stormy autumn nights, like now, the rain and wind would lash the grave without mercy.

Today Ragna thought the grave was protected, and well looked after. The heavy, imposing church bore the brunt of the angry winds that blew off the river. But she was soaked by the rain within minutes, and her hands were freezing. She had a grave candle with her in a bag. Her lighter was running out of fuel and she struggled to light it, but eventually managed and put on the mesh top. When she saw the small flame flickering in front of her parents’ names, she felt a peace descend.

Hans and Signe Riegel .

Greatest of all is love .

Not once had she heard them say a mean word to each other, not as a child, a teenager or an adult. She stood for a while, as one does by a grave. She wanted to leave something behind, not just the candle — a kind of energy, a feeling of gratitude. She stood completely still, deep in concentration, thinking of her parents with all the warmth left in her frozen body. She hoped her thoughts would reach them like jets of warm air far down in the ground, that they would lie there glowing. That all her thoughts over the years, her longing and loss, would penetrate the wood of the coffins. There was no more she could do. Every time, it hurt as much to leave them, the connection she had felt for a short while was torn by the present, and when she emerged onto the street, the cars whizzed by and the wet gusts of wind whipped her face. With considerable force, the wind blew her back to reality, to the living. It was mid-afternoon and already dark. Frozen souls scurried across the square with bent heads hidden by umbrellas and hoods. She had to wait for a bus to Kirkelina, so she braced herself and went into Magasinet, and found herself a table in the warm cafe. It was self-service, so she was able to help herself to a Danish pastry and a cup of coffee from the machine and pay without saying a word. She sat for a while with her hands around the cup to warm them, and looked at the other customers. The cafe was full, because of the weather. Perhaps there were several of them waiting for the bus. There were certainly quite a few people with plastic bags on the floor beside them. No one looked in her direction, but she was used to that. She was used to being invisible, and had worked hard to achieve it. But she still checked swiftly to see if anyone was watching her. That was what he had written, in his third message. Perhaps he was sitting here, right now, in the warm cafe, perhaps he had followed her through town, perhaps he had waited among the gravestones, she would not have noticed him.

The coffee had been standing too long in the pot, and the Danish pastry that had looked so tempting in the display counter was dry and flaky. The baker had probably got up around four in the morning and taken the first batch of pastries out of the oven at five. Then he had loaded the day’s orders into a van and driven round to deliver them all, not only to Magasinet, but to lots of other cafes as well, and that took some time. She looked at her watch — it was eleven hours since five in the morning. She ate the pastry nonetheless, listened to the hum of voices and chairs scraping on the hard stone tiles. She could see the main entrance where the doors were constantly opening and closing, and every time she felt a cold gust of air from the street.

Then she noticed someone was watching her. At first it was just a glance, but she soon felt his eyes on her again and again. She became tense and hunched. Looked over at him, then away several times, had to make sure it was her he was looking at, try to find out why. She felt edgy and wanted to leave, even though it was still some time until the next bus. There was something familiar about him, she realised, perhaps he was one of the regular customers from Europris. When people popped up in unexpected contexts it was often impossible to place them. If he was a customer from the shop, then he had never seen her without her green overall on, which might explain why he seemed so unsure. She had a black coat on, with a fur trim round the hood. Like most people, he wanted to solve the puzzle, which was why he kept staring, while his brain worked overtime to place her in the right context. A pensioner in a grey coat, eating a bun. She logged him. Lots of the customers at Europris were pensioners. His grey hair was long and unkempt, and he had not shaved for a while. The bun was probably eleven hours old as well, she thought, and his coffee as bitter as hers. She turned away. Tried to show she was uncomfortable, but he did not take the hint. She stood up abruptly and hurried towards the door. Surely that old man was not the one sending her threats? The doors slid open and she was almost blown over by the fierce wind. She pulled up her hood and took a few moments to gather herself; she had got away from her pursuer, and wanted to get home quickly now. Just as she was about to make a dash to the bus stop, he came up beside her. He was suddenly very close, and a lot taller than her, and she knew he was going to say something any moment. She noticed that he looked very meek, almost apologetic, and could not understand why. But it was her he was staring at, it was her he wanted.