Карин Фоссум - The Whisperer

‘Did he come here to get you?’

‘I think so,’ Ragna said. ‘Will they be here soon?’

‘It won’t take them more than ten minutes,’ Gunnhild said, ‘they’re just across the river. We mustn’t touch anything,’ she added. ‘Have you touched anything?’

‘I live here. Of course I’ve touched things.’

Gunnhild went over to the sofa, found a blanket, and laid it gently over Ragna’s knees.

‘But why didn’t you ring anyone?’

‘I’ve tried several times, but no one comes. You don’t know what it’s like.’

Gunnhild went back to the window, watching just as Ragna had done all autumn.

‘I can’t get hold of Rikard,’ Ragna said.

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t find anyone. Everyone just disappears.’

‘Not everyone, surely?’

‘Walther,’ she whispered. ‘Mummy and Daddy. Rikard Josef. William. And Irfan.’

‘Irfan?’

Ragna pointed at the window.

‘He had the shop over the road. I went there every day.’

‘Have you taken anything?’ Gunnhild asked. ‘Pills? Why do you have that picture of the dog by the door? You’ve never had a dog.’

‘You’re asking too many questions,’ Ragna complained. And then she wept. Time had started up again — she noticed that the second hand on the wall clock was ticking.

‘Do you believe there’s an afterwards?’ Ragna whispered.

‘After death? There’s nothing after death,’ Sejer said.

‘Yes, but if. Only if. What would you want it to be?’

‘I don’t want anything after death.’

His words were followed by a smile, which Ragna reciprocated.

‘There’s someone you miss,’ she said, and looked up at the photograph of Elise.

‘Yes, there is. I will never see them again.’

‘But if you saw them,’ she insisted. ‘Would you not be happy?’

‘I’ve never been that bothered about happiness,’ Sejer said.

‘You’re so stubborn,’ Ragna exclaimed.

‘So are you.’

‘What are you interested in then?’

‘Right now, I’m interested in you.’

They smiled at each other again. They had made a secret connection. Sejer was like a mountain, an unconquered rock face. But she saw something else as well, she saw it every time he glanced over at Frank by the window. She saw the devotion shared by the long grey man and the small fat dog.

‘Are you particularly fond of Frank because he can’t talk?’

‘Perhaps,’ Sejer had to admit. ‘I have to use all my senses to know what he wants and what he needs. When he’s gone, it’s his eyes I’ll remember, and the smell of him. But when people we know die, it’s their voice that stays with us.’

‘People talk too much,’ Ragna said. ‘Too much importance is put on words.’

‘That’s how we solve our problems,’ Sejer said.

This reminded her of something she had once seen when she was out walking.

‘It was shortly after the fateful operation,’ she explained. ‘I was looking for a way to come to terms with what had happened. So I went for a walk, but being alone in town on a grey day only amplified my feelings of grief. For everything that I had lost forever. I walked for hours, and gradually there were fewer and fewer houses. Eventually I was out on a country road with hardly any traffic. I passed a paddock with two horses, one brown and one black. Just then, as I stood there looking at them, it started to rain. It was not a fine summer rain, but one of those sudden showers that turned into a downpour. I huddled up by the electric fence. It was raining so hard that it was pummelling my shoulders. I had nothing with me, no raincoat, no umbrella, and there was no shelter anywhere nearby. So I stood still and thought, ah well, I’ll get wet. I continued to watch the horses, because something had happened. First they lifted their heads to the rain. Then they moved slowly towards each other and the brown horse put its heavy head on the back of the black horse. And they stood together in the rain, as close as two steaming big animals can. There was something so simple and heart-warming about it, something so natural. Yes, I thought, there’s far too much talk in the world. It’s better to do, to take action. I turned round and walked home again and was really quite happy.’

‘And what are your thoughts on what comes after?’ Sejer asked.

‘I have so many thoughts about death. Some people think of death as a personal insult.’

She smiled briefly as she remembered an article she had read somewhere.

‘If one fine day, after a long and arduous life, I find myself weightless and suspended in space, without knowing what’s up and what’s down, without seeing or hearing, and I don’t know how long I’m going to be there, and can’t understand why I’m hanging there and no longer know who I am, well, then I’m dead. And because I’m dead, I’m free. But if, after a few years, or maybe a few thousand years, some patronising creator comes and picks my free soul out of eternity and forces it into another body of flesh and blood, I don’t know that I could face that.’

They were allies again. The acknowledgement passed from him to her and then back again.

‘What about the squirrel?’ he asked.

‘The squirrel, yes,’ she whispered. ‘It’s a lovely story. The kind that a father should always tell his children. What do the newspapers say about me?’ she asked, out of the blue. ‘Has the case been given a name? Most big cases usually get a nickname. I want to know what mine is.’

Sejer shook his head.

‘The Riegel case?’ she suggested.

‘No.’

‘Is it something with Jehovah perhaps,’ she said. ‘The Jehovah case, or the Jehovah killing?’

‘You’ll be spending a lot of time on your own in the years ahead,’ Sejer said. ‘And you’ll get access to newspapers and the news soon enough. Now, I want to ask an important question. You’ll be asked the same thing in court when you get there. Think carefully before you answer.’

‘Okay.’

‘When Bennet came into your kitchen and sat down at your table, and told you why he was there, did you feel your life was in danger?’

She thought carefully about this, exactly as he had said she should.

‘I just wanted the torment to stop.’

‘Did you feel your life was in danger? Yes or no?’

‘I wasn’t sure what would happen.’

‘So you wanted to beat him to it?’

‘I wanted to be on the safe side, to be sure.’

‘Is that what you will tell the judge? That you killed Bennet to be on the safe side?’

‘I’m answering your question as best I can!’ she stammered. ‘It was foolish of him to come alone. Jehovah’s Witnesses never come alone.’

‘The other person couldn’t make it,’ Sejer told her. ‘And Bennet was a conscientious young man.’

‘He could have said that,’ she mumbled. ‘He just came into my kitchen and said I was going to die.’

‘And when you stopped him from carrying out his mission, whatever you thought that might be, how did you think then?’

‘I thought about you,’ she said.

‘Us? The police?’

‘I saw what was on the floor, and knew that finally you would have to come.’

Dear Rikard Josef ,

Have you ever thought about how difficult it can be to know the truth about things? The definitive, most detailed version of an event? Or how difficult it is to answer questions properly, or to be sure of anything at all? Is it possible to be entirely truthful? Of course not. As soon as a thought takes form in the brain, it sparks into action and sends out a signal that turns into words, which are shaped by the journey from thought to speech, coloured by fear and assumptions, and the desire to be seen in a good light, when you have been eclipsed. Sometimes I think that everything that has happened to me over the years has taken place underwater. Whenever I think about people I have known, their faces are like pale anemones floating on the currents of the sea. Perhaps I am still underwater. Everything seems to unfold so slowly. Reality is only visible in glimpses, like the flickering of the sun on the surface of the water .