Карин Фоссум - The Whisperer

It was half past six when she took up her post at the end of the pedestrian precinct. She had put lipstick on and she had done her hair and sprayed it, to keep it in place. Her ears were cold. Behind her was the square with all its lights and chestnut trees, in front of her the shops. She stood under some eaves and kept her eyes peeled for the Englishman. There was a chance that he would show up, that he had a fixed route, something that he always did at this time, it wasn’t an unreasonable thought. Tall, straight-backed and purposeful, he would come striding down the street. From where she was standing, she had a good overview of all the streets, she could see the river and the promenade, the fire station and the church. She could also see Erotica, and all the strange things they had in the window. And Ladies Choice, of course. And slowly, it sank in. She had of course been deleted from the Englishman’s memory. What he had said were just phrases, something he said all the time, whenever he bumped into someone. He said darling and love and sweetheart to everyone, she knew that, that’s what Englishmen were like. She felt like an idiot, standing there in the cold, and yet, she kept an eye on the time, and watched out for him, minute by minute. At ten to seven, she walked the last steps to the dress shop, positioned herself and studied the window, all the expensive dresses, turning round every now and then to look up and down the street. She stood there for a long time, freezing, had never felt so alone, even though there were people milling around on the busy shopping street. Her feet got cold, her cheeks and fingers, and still she waited. When the clock showed a quarter past seven, she realised how ridiculous the whole project was. What was she thinking, how naive could you be, how pathetic? Wandering the streets in the November dark, chilled to the bone, in the hope of bumping into a complete stranger?

Her feet were leaden when she walked back to the bus stop. The bus came after twenty minutes, and when she had settled in her regular place, she tried to fold herself in so she would take up as little space as possible. She did not want to be near to anyone, did not want to see or hear them, and no one was to see her. That was her punishment for being so stupid. Good God, if only folk knew. But even then, as the bus pulled out, she looked down the street one last time — he might have been delayed. Once they had left the centre and the warmth had returned to her body, she felt more reconciled with herself. She was allowed to dream, to yearn, wish and hope. Everyone did, at one time or another, or constantly, if they were desperate. They dreamed of bumping into someone. She put her cheek to the window, as she often did, closed her eyes and slipped away. Where was he now? she wondered. Yes, he was good company. He was with friends, he was on top form and elegantly dressed, as he was when we bumped into each other by the shop. Where in England was he from? Oxford perhaps. No, London, of course, she was sure of that. Mayfair possibly, or Kensington, where he had an exquisite flat. She would love to know what he was called, George, or Michael or William. She decided he was William. It fitted with Walther. The two men in her life, two brief encounters. She stored William in her mind alongside Walther. Her brain was now firm and wrinkled as a truffle.

Night after night she lay awake, despite the sleeping pills. Was her head not awfully hot, did her arms not feel heavy, like two clubs that she could not lift? She had no idea what Naper had given her, probably small sugar pills, she thought. She took four, six, eight, and still lay awake. On her right side, on her left side, on her back, curled up or stretched out. She was always more anxious around three in the morning, in case someone rang at the door, but all she heard was a rising and falling hum. She made another appointment with the doctor, sat in the waiting room and thought about what she would say. He nodded gallantly when she came into the room, but did not get up from his chair. He was extremely overweight which meant that not only did he find it hard to move, he was also very generous with patients who asked for relief, especially if it was something self-inflicted, as he could hardly point a finger himself. And Ragna liked him for this. He was on her side. She told him that she was still not able to sleep. And when she did sometimes fall asleep in the early hours, she had terrible nightmares. She told him that her brain had melted, that the content had spilled out of her skull and down her spine, that she had not been able to move and had lain there as though caught in a fox trap, and could not even reach for her mobile phone on the bedside table.

Naper looked at her for a long time. Much longer than usual and with greater gravity.

‘Did you have a temperature, perhaps?’

‘No, definitely not.’

‘That was not a good dream.’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ Ragna whispered. ‘And it all happened in my body, if you see what I mean. Not in flickering images, as dreams normally do.’

‘Well, there’s nothing to stop you taking two tablets,’ he said.

‘I take four,’ Ragna explained, ‘and still can’t sleep. Sometimes I take six or eight, and that doesn’t work either. What’s in those pills? They’re suspiciously small.’

He winked at her, as though he had been caught out, and turned to the screen to scan through her notes.

‘Well, you’re certainly not an addict,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you something stronger. But remember, you’re getting older. And we lose a lot of things over the years. Like the ability to relax. Our beauty, our radiance, our mobility.’

‘Beauty?’ Ragna had to chuckle. ‘I’ve never had that to lose, so that doesn’t scare me.’

She sat there patiently while he wrote out a prescription. She was only scared of her own fear when she lay awake hour after hour, and her thoughts spun through the dark to terrible places. And people rang on the doorbell at night and wanted to get in. Maybe Naper could not sleep either. She wondered if he had anywhere to go with his complaints, or if he spent the afternoons writing out prescriptions for himself.

‘I’ll give you some Apodorm,’ he said. ‘But you must go to bed as soon as you’ve taken a tablet. They’re very strong and can cause memory loss. It is possible you might forget anything you do after you’ve taken one.’

Ragna smiled.

‘That’s absolutely fine,’ she said. ‘I don’t do much in the evenings anyway. Certainly nothing that’s worth remembering.’

‘You will definitely sleep now,’ he promised. ‘But you’ll probably be very heavy-headed when you wake up.’

‘I’m heavy-headed anyway, from lack of sleep,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

Again, he looked at her long and hard.

‘And was there anything else?’ he asked.

She shrugged. What did ‘anything else’ mean? Was he after her secrets? She knew that ‘anything else’ was an important sign, an open door, but she did not dare go in.

‘There must be a reason why you’re having these unpleasant dreams,’ he prompted, giving her a friendly nod.

‘I spend too much time on my own,’ she admitted. ‘In my head. My thoughts go wild.’

‘You need someone to distract you,’ he said.

‘And would that be a man, perhaps?’ she whispered, and raised her eyebrows.

‘Perhaps.’

She thought about the letters. About the dark figure that had stood under the street light. About the doorbell that had frightened the life out of her at three in the morning. She had a chance to say it out loud, that someone was after her, things might be easier if she confided in him, they could maybe laugh about it together. But something stopped her, the fear of what might happen if she admitted she was scared. She did not want it recorded in her medical history, there was too much there already.