Карин Фоссум - The Whisperer

Sometimes he chose to say nothing. Not to create uncertainty, but he did use silence as a tactic. It could trigger a body language that told him something about the person, or they might talk too much, get nervous, and give themselves away. But now it was more a case of giving her space and an opportunity to compose herself. To process and defend the things she had confided in him, things she had never told anyone. When he said nothing, her eyes roamed around the room. She noticed things, the way quiet people do, and because she had problems with communicating, she was a good listener.

‘I like Grace Kelly too,’ she whispered, and nodded at a photograph on the wall. ‘I like old American films. They’re buried together, the prince and her, in the palace. There are always flowers on the grave. And there are always people there.’

Ragna was given one of Sejer’s rarest smiles.

‘That’s my wife, Elise. She’s buried too, and there are always flowers on the grave. But there are not many people there, just Frank and me.’

‘Oh,’ she whispered. ‘But she’s like her. She looks so like her.’

‘Everyone says that,’ Sejer replied proudly.

‘Oh,’ she whispered again.

She gazed at the portrait for a while, then looked at Sejer, then back at the portrait. And again she felt ashamed that she had spoken about her own portrait in a way that suggested it was beautiful.

‘Elise?’

He nodded.

Silence followed. He sat there looking at her nylon work coat; it was far too big, he could barely guess what her figure was like.

‘Do you often lose control, Ragna?’ he asked, out of the blue.

She laughed, a few short breaths.

‘Look at me. Listen to my voice. Does it look like it?’

Her eyes met his, she was surer of him.

‘No,’ he had to admit. ‘But you do have that most important of instincts in you — rage. Everyone does. Because at some point or other, we all find ourselves in a situation where we need it. The adrenaline, that is. It makes us strong and fast. Men have it more than women, of course; men have to go out and hunt, they’re the ones most likely to encounter wild animals. But you have a bit too, don’t you? That’s why you’re sitting here now, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘But women have other weapons as well, only they’re not often aware of it, or just what they are capable of. Goodness, Gunnhild at work bought some pepper spray, which she always keeps in her handbag. So in that moment when she’s panicking she has to rummage around in her bag. Get the lid off, aim and hit the mark, while all the time some lunatic is threatening her with a knife.’

‘I can see the problem,’ he nodded.

‘But there’s something else that will always scare an attacker,’ she continued. ‘Something that all women have. That they don’t need to look for, and yet they always hesitate to use.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘A scream.’

That reminded him of many cases, many women. A rape could take place in a bedroom while other people were enjoying themselves in the living room. Women had been raped in doorways while people walked past on the street. That paralysing fear. The fear that things might escalate.

‘It’s best to keep still. Not to move a finger. It will soon be over.’

She started to become more aware of people in a different way. She had always thought they were so similar, especially in the autumn. They all dressed the same, whether they were women or men, in down jackets and denim, black, dark blue and anonymous. Teenagers all dressed the same as well, though not as many of them came into Europris, and she was not out on the street much. But now they were no longer a homogenous mass. The troll had always had many heads, and now she could see each one of them.

She was working the early shift and was on the till. She kept the customers at a distance with a tight smile, but she nodded to the amount displayed on the card terminal, and with her hand on the box of carrier bags, looked up with questioning eyes. No one said anything when they were at the till. And practically no one looked at her either, she was simply part of the card terminal. But now Ragna studied each individual carefully. That is to say, not the women so much, and they were definitely the majority, but all the others, the men, to see if they were sending out signals, something she should notice, that extra something, be it a cryptic smile or disturbed expression. Something special about their body language, an opaque comment, or for that matter, a distinct smell, even though she realised she was no bloodhound. She could smell neither fear nor aggression. But there were no men like that, there was no one who stood out. She did not see anyone who might be the anonymous letter writer, who was maybe out to get her, or to get attention. They were no longer the same, though; despite the down jackets and denim, she saw them clearly now. She saw the subtleties and details. Even the regular customers, the ones she thought she had studied and pigeonholed once and for all, were given another assessment. No, it was none of them. Could a young father looking for a cheap toboggan, with a toddler in tow, be her tormentor? Or an older woman looking for Jamie Oliver’s new frying pan, which normally cost twelve hundred kroner, but they sold for half-price? There’s something I’ve missed, she thought, something I’ve forgotten, something from way back. But she didn’t like to think about the past, she had enough as it was with the present, her head was full of the moment, the sounds and smells, the stream of people, it filled her completely. Everyone said that we only use parts of our brain, hah! She knew better than that. Every single cell was being used, there were no empty pockets in Ragna’s head.

She let the products glide past on the short conveyor belt and was absolutely certain that her harasser from Kirkelina would show up at some point or other. Suddenly he would be standing there, staring at her, perhaps with a knowing smile. To take the game a step further, because it was a game, after all. To observe his victim close at hand, to relish her ignorance and vulnerability. Maybe say a few words that she would not understand the significance of to begin with, but then, a few hours later, it would dawn on her. Dear God. It was him, it was him! There was scarcely a metre between her and the customers when she sat at the till, and she used every second well. As a result she got more tired than she usually did, her senses were on full alert. When the long shift was finally over, she had to count the money, make sure it was right, which it always was, she was very careful. And then the minutes it took to walk to the bus stop, get on the bus, find her usual seat, the third back on the left-hand side. Relieved and frustrated at the same time because she had not picked up on anything. Her suspicion had not been aroused, she had not received any cryptic signs. That meant that she had blended into the crowd, like a fish in a shoal. She sat slumped against the bus window, with the knowledge that when she got off forty minutes later and walked the last few metres along Kirkelina, she would have to open the mailbox with ‘Riegel’ on it.

The street lamp by her driveway came on at dusk and she was careful not to block the light as she lifted the lid. When she stared down into the box, she nurtured the burning defiance that would turn to rage if she found another anonymous letter. But there was no new letter. She gathered up the newspaper and advertisements, a begging letter from the Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation and an electricity bill, and when she then sat down on her chair, by the standard lamp, she read the local news to see if any of the other readers had experienced the same as her, and if they had written about it on ‘My Page’. It could not just be her! If other people had received a similar message, then it would mean nothing, but if she was the only one, she could not see it as anything but a real threat. If it was a threat at all. The message was concise, that she was going to die, and that was true enough. Someone had just felt the need to point it out, some disturbed soul, perhaps. Some poor lonely person who craved attention, or someone who was going to die themselves very soon. She flicked through the paper from start to finish, and when she got to the obituaries, she read them with great interest. Strange, isn’t it, she thought, I don’t know anyone, no one in this town at all. She didn’t want to know anyone, either. But she got it into her head that whoever had sent the message was sitting there reading the obituaries too, with equal interest, and his fingers would be black with ink, like her own, when he put the newspaper to one side. And that’s the way it should be, she thought, as she made her way through the list of names. The suffering of the world should leave its mark, not just flash on a screen. She never read the news online, she liked the sound of the paper rustling as she turned the page. She remembered that when her father read something upsetting, he would sometimes shake the paper hard, without mercy, as if it were a naughty child. Then it was not just a faint rustling, it was hard and loud.