Карин Фоссум - The Whisperer

Ragna turned over in the bed, defiantly faced the wall, pressed her forehead against the cool, dry wallpaper. She lay there in the dark tracing her fingers over the flock, feeling the different patterns that she knew so well, but could not see. A lily, a leaf. She felt them under her fingertips like Braille. Was it really a coincidence that Walther had shown up now, or was he part of something bigger, a plan she knew nothing about, a pattern she could not see?

As the days passed, she got to know the rhythm of the building. The main police station was full of sounds — the slamming of cell doors, the whirring and humming of lifts, the busy pulse of the place. She heard the lock turn early in the morning when they came with breakfast, or when it was her turn to go to the bathroom, and then again later on, often around eleven, when one of the guards would come to collect her for more questioning. But it was midday now, and no one had come to collect her. No one had told her that the interview had been postponed or would take place later in the day, or perhaps would not happen at all. Or that the inspector had now heard what he needed, and everything she had said was to be summarised and presented to the district court. She waited. She listened out for any movement in the corridor, sat on her bunk with her hands in her lap, nervously scuffing her feet against the floor. Any second now, someone would come. They were just late. It was winter and the guards wore heavy boots, so it was easy to hear them as they walked around in the corridor. She got up and went over to the window, stood there with her back to the door. When it opened she would turn round with a surprised look on her face.

‘Oh, is that the time! He must be waiting for me.’

But no one came. It might be a tactic, she thought. They had decided they had been nice long enough now; it was time to demonstrate the gravity of the situation, what she had done, her appalling crime. She must not be allowed to believe they had forgotten it. They had noted it, discussed it and compared it with other crimes. They had given her a place in the district’s history. She would be talked about at dinner tables, like some particularly juicy titbit, in homes up and down the country, and discussed over a drink or two in the evening. But for now, she had to live with the uncertainty and wait in the most humane prison system in the world, which was her good fortune. She lay down on her bunk again, with her hands close by her sides, tense as a steel spring. She normally spent the afternoon going through her conversation with Sejer in detail, but now she had nothing to go through. He was busy with something else, someone else. After all, she was not the only one, there were lots of green doors along the corridor and all day long she heard locks firing open and closed like gunshots.

It was Adde who came with her lunch at one o’clock. He was one of the guards who said little, using his eyes instead. He put down the rather unappetising tray on her desk, studied her and then turned to leave. There was something wrong with one of his eyes, it was lifeless — it might even be glass — bigger than the other and brighter, but quite definitely blind.

‘Will they be coming to get me soon?’ she whispered.

He did not understand, and shook his head.

‘Who?’

His dead eye expressed nothing, but the other one honed in on her.

She went over to the desk, inspected the food. There was nothing to complain about — there could have been three adults in the cell and there would be enough for them all.

‘Well.’ She looked away, embarrassed. ‘The questioning. We’re not finished.’

The cell door was open. His hand was resting on the handle, his attention was actually on the corridor, in case anything should happen there. He was so calm, so secure, so strong. It obviously had not occurred to him that she could lose her mind. That she might come charging towards him with the metal fork in her hand and aim at his eye, his one good eye. She could gouge out his eye like a mussel from its shell. She could go for the pulsing artery on his neck. It bulged thick and blue under his skin, as veins and arteries often do in men who go to the gym a lot. He knew perfectly well what she was accused of, and yet he stood with his back to her, his shoulders relaxed. She took a few steps across the floor.

‘I haven’t explained myself,’ she whispered. ‘There’s more.’

He turned to her and smiled, but only with his mouth. His hair, black and cropped, lay on his head like velvet. She looked at her lunch. Slices of brown bread, cheese and salami. Small dishes of butter and marmalade, some slices of apple. Half an orange and a yogurt. A hard-boiled egg. Small sachets of salt and pepper, a serviette and a carton of juice. He left, and she sat down to eat, but did not eat much. She lay down on the bunk again to wait, closed her eyes and imagined she was lying between the tracks on an old railway bridge with her arms held tight to her body. That she could feel the vibration of the train approaching. The legal system would rattle over her, but she was lying as flat as she could. That way, she would save her life.

But Adde came back. He escorted her down the long corridors to the lift, and on to Sejer’s office. She hoped she would get an explanation. He had kept her waiting without letting her know why, for no reason, and now he had decided to talk to her all the same. The inspector’s calm, the fact that he was so solid and unshakeable, had started to irritate her. She had come to the conclusion that he had kept her waiting on purpose, that he had a plan. Humiliation. A confession. But she was humble. She had already confessed.

She took her time to sit down, scraped the chair on the floor, was not as quiet as usual. Sejer did not notice. He gave her time to settle, waited until he had her full attention.

‘Did you have any sense of time? From the event until Gunnhild let herself into the house and raised the alarm?’

Ah, so that was what he wanted, to talk about the event — then she could go along with him.

‘No sense of time,’ she whispered. ‘Not that time stood still. But it didn’t move either. It was just one second after another, and I lived every single one of them.’

‘So it could have been hours, but also days?’

‘Yes.’

‘An eternity perhaps?’

‘Yes, an eternity, or just a moment.’

‘And was it a relief that someone had finally come and taken charge?’

‘Yes, it was fine.’

‘Just fine?’

‘I knew that sooner or later someone would come. I was tired and I didn’t care.’

She wanted to ask him if the timing was important. Why he was so concerned about the details and what she had thought and felt. He was presumably following procedure, even though she was in no way denying what had actually happened. Still, he wanted every link in the chain, held each one up to the light, looked at it from all angles.

‘You phoned Europris on Monday morning,’ Sejer said, ‘to tell them you were ill. You spoke briefly to Gunnhild. Can you remember the conversation?’

‘I’ve already told you, I remember everything.’

She tapped her temple with her forefinger, to indicate that everything was stored in her head.

‘And did you go and lie down afterwards?’

‘I kept collapsing. On the chair, on the sofa, on the floor. I remember I was freezing.’

‘So Monday passed,’ Sejer continued, ‘and Tuesday. On Wednesday afternoon, Gunnhild rang to hear how you were, if you felt any better. If there was anything you needed. What you said made no sense and you seemed to be confused. Can you remember that conversation as well?’

‘Yes, I was confused, which is not so strange, really. I sat in my chair and it would not stay still, I had to hold on to the armrests.’