Карин Фоссум - The Whisperer

If this is the life I am to have, this cell with its narrow bed, and a small desk by the window, then I will accept it without complaint. It is still light in the morning and dark in the evening. I fill my lungs with air, and my heart, which is also good, continues to beat. This is a life, too. But I am not making any plans, do not want to think ahead. It is the curse of mankind that we live our whole lives in fear. Of what might happen, tomorrow or next year. Or we live in fear of old sins, a mongrel that snaps at our heels, and that sooner or later will catch up with us. Instead of walking out of the house when the sun is high, lifting our faces and feeling its warmth on our cheeks. Your grandfather often did that. And it gave him pleasure enough for one day. I have always been content with little. When you came into the world, you were a treasure I never dreamt I would have, which is why I held you so tight, and carried you in my arms. I often stood at the window watching you, when you sat on the lawn playing, or in the snow with your pompom hat on, and snot running out of your nose. I kept an eye on all the cars that drove past, to see if any of them slowed down — I studied everyone who walked down the road. And if they looked at you for too long, or stopped to say a few words, if you were making a nice snowman for instance, I would come rushing out. And I would stare hard at them to demonstrate that you were mine and that I was responsible for you. That is probably why you had to cut free in the end .

Perhaps I got what I deserved .

What can I say in my defence? If you never have your own children, you will never be able to understand how hard it is to do everything right. I hope with all my heart that your days pass well. And the hours, and minutes, and all the dark nights .

Mummy

To Sejer’s surprise, Ragna wanted to continue. But she did not talk in the same focused way as before — she was more on her guard and watched him with keen eyes. She knew that something unpleasant was coming and she was steeling herself. In the end, she chose to beat him to it.

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she whispered. ‘So just say it.’

Sejer weighed his words, as he always did with people who had been hurt.

‘After all that we’ve talked about, after all this time, do you still think it was Bennet who sent you the anonymous threats?’

‘Is it so strange that I came to that conclusion?’

She saw the compassion in the inspector’s eyes.

‘You came to that conclusion when he was sitting in your kitchen. I am asking what you think now.’

‘He said I was going to die,’ was her prompt response.

‘But have you, even tentatively, ever thought that perhaps you attacked the wrong man?’

She looked at him with scepticism.

‘Are you going to tell me that you’ve found some brat who went from mailbox to mailbox, and half the town received the same threats? I don’t believe you.’

‘That’s not the story I was going to tell,’ he said. ‘No, that’s not what we’ve found. No one else has reported receiving threats, like you. But before you got that first letter in your mailbox, had anything happened? Something difficult that might have triggered the whole thing?’

‘Are you saying that it’s my fault?’

Again, he gave her a sympathetic look.

‘I was fine,’ she said. ‘Everything was fine and normal. I like working in the shop, I like putting nail brushes from Taiwan neatly on the shelves, with the right price. Sometimes I build small pyramids for fun. The others laugh at me when I do that, I know it’s childish. I like sitting at the till as well, as I don’t need to speak. No one notices me, they leave me in peace.’

‘Would you have liked someone to notice you?’

She looked insulted, and did not answer.

‘Would you have liked to be noticed in the way that Walther Eriksson noticed you? To be seen in that way?’

Her cheeks were red now.

‘Yes and no.’

‘But it happened, all the same,’ Sejer said. ‘You got a message. Someone had seen you.’

‘Lots of messages.’

‘But you didn’t keep them,’ he said. ‘You can never take them out and read them again. I will never be able to read them either, and they can’t be used in court as evidence of the reign of terror you say you went through.’

‘I say I went through? What are you trying to suggest?’

She snorted angrily a couple of times.

‘You wouldn’t have kept them either,’ she said. ‘No one would. By burning them, I felt I was ignoring him. Destroying him. Denying his existence. I did what I thought best. And when I saw him standing down by the road, watching the house, I rang here and asked for help. I talked to a policewoman, but she didn’t want to send anyone round. And it’s not easy for me to make demands,’ she added, ‘given my voice. I can’t make a fuss on the phone. I can barely be angry at all.’

Sejer doodled on his notepad.

‘You didn’t ring, Ragna,’ he said quietly. ‘Are you aware of that? We never received your call. All calls are meticulously recorded and saved, and we can’t find your call anywhere. And I can promise you, we’ve looked.’

Ragna sat there and held her breath. At first she wanted to laugh, but then she saw his eyes, his grey eyes. She had never felt such compassion from anyone before, not even William, the Englishman.

‘I did!’ she whispered.

‘No,’ Sejer said.

‘It was a female officer,’ she insisted. ‘I remember her well. I remember what she said, word for word.’

‘But there is no one who remembers you.’

Her mouth was so dry that she struggled to formulate the words.

‘You make it sound like I don’t exist.’

‘Oh, you exist, Ragna, I can see you clearly. And I hear everything you say, every single word. But the telephone conversation that you told me about is not recorded in our archives.’

She looked over at the dog that was lying by the window.

‘You’re forgetting one important thing,’ she said. ‘I came to the police station in person and filed a report. And I handed in the last message, the one that he’d left on my bedside table, with that report. I told you, I took a taxi here, and it was Irfan who came to get me. Irfan Baris.’

‘We have spoken to Baris,’ Sejer said.

Again, that unshakeable calm.

‘Then he can confirm that he drove me here. That I came into the reception on the ground floor.’

‘And he has. He picked you up at Kirkelina, you were standing in the road waiting, and he drove you to the police station, but he parked a bit further down the road and sat there reading the newspaper. He knows nothing about what you did after you got out of the car.’

‘Then you must find the report straight away. Go and find it now!’

‘We have not received a report about a break-in at Kirkelina 7. Nor the message that you say you found on your bedside table. The two documents were never submitted.’

‘Yes, they were.’

‘We can’t find them.’

‘Then you’ve lost them,’ she said in despair. ‘Now that what’s happened has happened, you’re denying that I asked for help, because then you could be held responsible.’

Sejer felt awful, as though he had clubbed a child. He had asked her to be honest in her evidence, had said he was willing to listen, and for days he had listened. Ragna had taken him into her lonely world, and now he had rejected her version. He was questioning her perception of reality, he had utterly betrayed her. And everything between them, the trust he had so carefully managed to build, would be ruined.

‘You seemed to be confused,’ he said calmly.