The Caller (3 page)

‘But what will he do if we ignore him?’ Skarre asked. ‘We always have to take that into consideration. Will he become more dangerous, even angrier, if he doesn’t get any reaction? There’s something explosive about it all. We’re talking about a little baby, a soap- and milk-smelling little sugar cube weighing seven or eight kilos.’

‘You’re right,’ Sejer said. ‘He needs an audience. But it’s important that we try to be balanced. I will introduce him as a person with emotions, so he feels understood. We shouldn’t step on his toes.’

The inspector turned his back to the window and sat for a moment at his desk. A shy man, he didn’t like the prospect of going out into the square, to the sunshine and the heat and the ravenous, sensation-hungry journalists and their curiosity. But, as inspector, it was his job to be the department’s public face. To inform and report, in his calm way.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Skarre asked, in a low, intimate voice.

‘About my grandson, actually,’ Sejer admitted. ‘You know Matteus. He’s at the Opera ballet school. They’ve just learned that one of the pupils will get the chance to make a guest appearance on the main stage. In April.’

‘So he’s going to audition?’

‘Yes,’ Sejer said. ‘On the tenth of October. For the role of Siegfried in
Swan Lake
.’

‘The prince.’

‘Yes,’ Sejer said. ‘A lot’s at stake. He really wants to get that role. But there are so many good dancers.’

He looked at the desk pad, a map of the world. His daughter’s eighteen-year-old son had been adopted from Somalia, and now he put his finger on this country, shown in yellow. Matteus was four when he came to Norway. Now he was a promising dancer at the ballet school, with an impressive physique and rock-hard, coffee-coloured muscles.

‘But do you think they’ll pick a black prince?’ Sejer said suddenly, a little concerned. ‘Certain roles never seem to come in black.’

‘Give me an example,’ Skarre said.

‘Robin Hood, Peter Pan.’

‘You’re worried about people’s prejudice, but you’re the one who’s prejudiced.’

Sejer glanced apologetically at his younger colleague. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for years, I can’t shake it. It’s never been easy for Matteus. At school he was a loner, and had a hard time. Now this: the prince in
Swan Lake
and plenty of stiff competition. Well, we’ll see how it turns out, I guess. I won’t harp on about it now.’

He got ready to meet the press. Straightened his back and adjusted the knot in his tie, until it was smooth and tight.

‘You’re thinking about the white swan girls,’ Skarre teased. ‘In feathers and tulle. And you’re afraid Matteus will stand out. But even swans come in black.’

‘Really?’ the inspector said.

‘There’s a pond with black swans at the cathedral in Palma,’ Skarre said. ‘They’re obviously much more attractive than the white swans, and they’re rarer.’

Sejer headed out to the journalists. Skarre’s words made him feel a little more optimistic.

That evening Sejer sat in front of his television, in a comfortable chair by the window, with a pillow supporting his back.

Sejer’s dog, a Chinese Shar Pei called Frank, lay at his feet, and was, like most Chinese, dignified, unapproachable and patient. Frank had tiny, closed ears – and thus bad hearing – and a mass of grey, wrinkled skin that made him look like a chamois cloth. His eyes, black and intelligent but with limited vision, were set deep within the wrinkles.

The case with the baby from Bjerketun got extensive coverage. Because it was a sensation, he thought, an oddity. It terrifies people – which is no doubt what the perpetrator wants.

He remained seated in front of the television. First he saw himself in a report from TV Norway, then on
The Day in Review
at seven, and finally on the evening news at eleven. He repeated the same words from channel to channel.

We’re taking this very seriously
.

His name and title – Inspector – flashed at the bottom of the screen. With mixed emotions he observed his own performance, noticing how the years had altered him, how he’d grown greyer, more chiselled and thinner. His cheekbones and chin stood out clearly, the slate-grey eyes deep-set. Inevitably, his thoughts gravitated towards death, how it grew from within and slowly overtook his features one by one.

Here I come: skull and bones.

He bent down and patted Frank’s head, shoving the dark thoughts away. His grandson, Matteus, came to mind. Dreamlike images from
Swan Lake
, which he’d seen a few times on television, flickered across his inner eye. The small ballerinas with feathers on their heads leaping lightly across the stage, the plaintive music. A black Siegfried. Well, he thought, if he’s a good enough dancer, he’ll get the part. That’s how it works. There’s justice in the world. In our part of the world anyway; we can afford it. But justice comes at a price. Some get what they deserve. A few years in prison if they’ve transgressed severely, or, if they’re unusually good dancers, the role of the prince in
Swan Lake
on the Opera’s main stage. And Matteus was just that. In Sejer’s view, at any rate, he was a remarkably good dancer. Black, strong and exotic, full of daring, exceptional. Sejer let his head loll, his hands on the armrests. His thoughts circled back to Margrete Sundelin, the baby. Someone had planned that assault carefully, and in mere seconds created a horrifying situation for her parents. A quake they must have felt deep within, and which they will remember for ever. But why Margrete? Why the Sundelins?

Near midnight, he rose and turned off all the lights. For a moment he stood in the middle of the living room, observing the outline of the heavy oak furniture. He had inherited the pieces from his parents, and they reminded him of old, patient friends who had always sat there. Sometimes, when he stood alone in the dark just like this, in his own rooms, he would fantasise something he never shared with anyone. His wife Elise sitting in the tall chair by the window and whispering:
Just go to bed, I’ll be there shortly
. But it had been a long time since she’d sat in the tall chair. Elise had died of cancer; he had become a widower at a young age, and his life had turned out differently from how he’d thought. It had taken him a long time to find another path through life. But that’s no different from anyone else, he thought. Frank followed him from room to room. Like Sejer, Frank was slow and deliberate, with his own elegant inaccessibility. When the entire flat was dark, he shuffled into the bedroom on his stumpy legs and plopped on his mat, where he would stay throughout the night guarding his master with an alertness that only Chinese fighting dogs possess. Sejer stood in the darkness listening, thinking he’d heard a far-off noise. It could be the lift, he thought, though it was pretty late and there wasn’t much activity in the building at this hour. Then he remembered that Elna across the corridor often worked evenings. She was a cleaner down at Aker Brygge, and had long, hard days. He went into his bedroom and undid the top buttons of his shirt. Just then the doorbell rang. In a flash, Frank rushed into the hallway, sat by the front door and whined, a guard dog. His daughter Ingrid came to mind, and Matteus. Had something happened, something they needed him for? They would have called. He hesitated a few seconds, but it never occurred to him not to open the door, because someone wanted something from him, and he was always ready to serve. That was his nature. But there was no one at his door, just an empty corridor with grey brick walls, an emergency fire box with an axe, and a handrail made of cast iron. He heard the lift descend, and followed the orange light with his eyes. Then he saw something lying on his doormat – a small grey envelope. He snatched it up and went inside, hurried to the window where he stood and waited. A minute or so later he saw a figure cross the car park. Young, he thought, and very fast. Definitely a man. Slender. Under forty, probably under thirty. The figure disappeared into the darkness. That was the man, Sejer was certain, who’d left the message on his doormat. In the kitchen he snapped on the light and examined the envelope. It was made of recycled paper and was blank. He got a sharp knife from a drawer and tore open the envelope. Inside was a picture postcard of an animal: a brown-black creature with a large, shaggy tail. He held the postcard with utmost care, sniffed it and read the back:

Norwegian mammals. Wolverine. Photographer Gøran Jansson
.

Then he read the short message:
Hell begins now
.

He looked down at Frank, who had followed him like a shadow. ‘A wolverine,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that something?’

He turned off the light in the kitchen and headed back to the bedroom. The dog lumbered to his mat and fell asleep. Sejer held the postcard up to the lamp on the bedside table.

Sleepless for a long while, he stared at the wolverine. My face on the television, he thought, on three channels.

My name at the bottom of the screen.

A piece of cake to track me down.

I’m in the phone book.

Finally he switched off the bedside lamp. Thought of the child, Margrete, and of everything that had happened, and of everything that might happen.

Hell begins now
.

His mother had been drinking heavily throughout the day and now lay sleeping on the sofa, her mouth wide open. He could see the pale, dry roof. She wore nothing but a silky bathrobe; it was black and had fallen open at the front, so he could see one of her breasts.

The brown nipple reminded him of a hard little turd.

His name was Johnny Beskow, and he cut a slight figure. But he had a distinct talent for mischief, and now he was putting it to use. His eyes were cold and clear as he studied his mother. He let his disgust flow freely because it allowed him to feel something. When he felt something he was completely alive, and his blood pumped more easily throughout his body. He stared at her as she lay on the sofa, and he loathed her; his loathing took his breath away, made his cheeks burn. He loathed everything about her: her personality, her appearance, her behaviour. Her sounds, her smells. She was thin and pale and haggard. She was unkempt and pathetic, a drunk, and all he felt was disgust. The thought that he’d come from her made him feel sick; he could barely stomach it. Once, many years ago, she’d wailed and squeezed him out of her body in a long, desperate scream. Without happiness or joy or expectation.

She had long dark hair and pale skin. Her age showed in a green web of lines at her temples and on her wrists. Her feet were small and narrow, with dry, hard skin and thick grey-white crusts on her heels.

‘Where does my father live?’ he said. ‘Tell me.’

She obviously didn’t hear him, because she was deep inside a thick vodka haze, and there she would remain for hours. She would rise from the sofa only at nightfall, then blink a few times and look at him in surprise. As though she’d forgotten she had a seventeen-year-old son who also lived in the house.

Johnny glanced at the wall, at a black-and-white photo of his mother. It had been taken when she was young. Each time he looked at this picture he would slide his eyes towards his mother on the sofa and think: What happened to her? The smiling woman on the wall, with her radiant eyes?

As a child he’d often asked about his father. ‘Where is he?’ he’d prodded. ‘Where is my father? Is he abroad?’

‘Your father?’ she would say, her voice full of bitterness. ‘Don’t keep on about that. He’s long gone, over the hills and far away.’

Johnny imagined the hills. A man ran through the picture in his mind, across a green hill only to disappear, before materialising on the next hilltop. He continued over the landscape in the same way, from hilltop to hilltop, until he was gone.

He sat motionless in his chair, staring icily at his mother. Or, as he liked to think: I’m watching her with the eyes of a fish. I could wake you, if I wanted. One day, when I’ve reached my limits, I will shock you from your stupor. And you will get up from the sofa screaming, covering your face with your hands. I can boil the kettle, and throw water in your face. Or, he thought, hot fat. Hot fat is definitely more effective. Fat burns into the skin for a long time, it doesn’t evaporate like water. But, it occurred to him, we probably don’t have fat. He stood up and went to the kitchen, opened the fridge. In the door was a bottle of cooking oil, which would certainly do the trick on the day he finally got her up from that sofa and made his mark once and for all. Because I have my limits, and if she pushes me too far, she will pay. God knows she will pay.

He returned to the living room and leaned against the window. Looked out at the driveway and front garden. Nobody is as messy as we are, he thought. They probably talk about us in the other houses: that crazy woman and her scrawny kid live there. In the garden, plastic rubbish bags and old paint buckets were strewn about. A rusted wheelbarrow filled with rainwater, a woodpile under a black tarpaulin; bushes and weeds had eaten their way towards the house with a force only nature can summon. The neglected house was rotting. His red Suzuki Estilete was parked by the steps. He sat down again. He tried to imagine his father, the man she wouldn’t tell him about. If only she would give him a clue. A name, or something that would give him an idea of who he was. Or
where
he was. And if he was dead, Johnny would like to know where he was buried. To see his name etched in stone. Did her drinking drive you out of the house? he wondered. Did you find another woman? Did you have children with her, children who are better than me and who you wanted to keep? Do you know that I’m sitting here? Are you ignoring me like a dull toothache? He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Thought of the little baby under the tree. You’re OK, he thought, they will watch you all the time now, your mum and dad. They won’t lose sight of you for a second, day or night. He imagined them huddled close, the little trinity. The sacred union, isolated from the rest of the world, packed inside happiness and contentment. From now on anything could happen. Every little step involved a risk; anywhere outside the house was a danger zone. And it was he who’d given them this new perspective. He, Johnny Beskow, had shown them reality.