The Drowned Boy (2 page)

Three vehicles had arrived before he did: Skarre, the forensics team, and an ambulance. They were all leaning against their cars, as there was nothing more they could do. The little boy who had drowned in Damtjern was lying on a tarpaulin. Sejer looked down at the boy. A naked, smooth little body with visible veins. Don’t get dizzy now, he thought, not at any cost. Not with people watching.

The boy appeared to be well looked after and in good shape with no deformities as far as he could see. His veins were very visible at the temples, a fine web of greenish-blue. His eyes were colorless and dull, but he could tell that they had once been blue; yes, the child was definitely in good shape. If he had suffered any kind of maltreatment, it was certainly not visible.

“The mother said that she went into shock,” Skarre told him. “She was doing something in the bathroom, and when she came back into the kitchen he was gone. She ran out into the yard and down to the pond, fearing the worst. She saw him by the jetty, threw herself into the water, and pulled him out. The water was about three feet deep where he was. And she tried to resuscitate him, but couldn’t. Well, that’s her preliminary statement anyway. We’ll see if it changes.”

“No visible trauma,” Sejer pointed out. “No cuts or bruises. He looks fit and healthy.”

He checked his watch; it was half-past two. Wednesday, August 10, beautiful weather, no wind and quite warm. It had been a long, hot summer with almost no rain and the grass around the pond was yellow and dry as straw. And now this—this little body with tiny hands and round cheeks, pale, bluish, and cool as smooth marble.

“Will you call Snorrason?”

“Yes,” Sejer replied. “We’ll drive the boy’s body straight there. We’ll get some answers pretty quickly. If he was alive when he fell in the pond, there will be water in his lungs. We might as well start there.”

“A sad sight,” Skarre said and nodded at the little body.

“Yes,” Sejer agreed. “A very sad sight indeed.” And I’m dizzy again, he thought to himself, and took a deep breath. He was squatting down next to the dead child and dreaded trying to stand up in case he gave himself away. Then they would find out that he, an inspector, was no longer at his best, but in serious decline. That age had caught up with him, or worse. So he stayed where he was and waited for it to pass.

“Do they live in the white house?” he asked and pointed to the old building with red window-frames.

“Yes,” Skarre replied. “And they’re very young. Only nineteen and twenty, in fact, so they started early. But, well, he looks a bit odd, doesn’t he?”

Sejer studied the small face with colorless cheeks. Yes, there was something special about him, something familiar.

“Down syndrome,” he said decisively. “I’d put a bet on it. Look at his eyes; that’s where you usually see it. And his hands, at that line, the one that runs across.” He lifted the boy’s hand to show him. The hand was cold and smooth.

“But he’s definitely old enough to walk,” he added. “He may even have crawled from the house down to the jetty.”

Skarre wandered around in the dry grass. His body was trim and agile, ready for action. His shirt was clean and freshly ironed as always, his shoes shiny. And if these virtues were not enough, he also believed in God. Jacob Skarre had given himself up to the mystery they call faith.

“I wonder why he’s naked,” Sejer mused. “There must be a reason. But then again, it is warm. Babies only sweat from their heads. Maybe they undressed him because it was so warm.”

“It’s obviously quite possible that he went down to the pond on his own,” Skarre agreed. “It’s not far. And most children learn to walk around one. Speaking of which, I didn’t start walking until I was eighteen months. My parents couldn’t sleep at night, because they thought I was disabled.”

“Who’d have guessed it?” Sejer exclaimed. “You who are so nimble?” Then he turned to the forensics team: “Can you drive the body down to Snorrason and say I’m waiting?”

He took a few steps across the grass and stared up at the white house with the dark windows. A swing set added a splash of red and he noticed a small sandbox with some brightly colored toys in it. Three old bikes stood leaning against the wall. A flower bed that needed weeding ran along the front of the house. And a blue Golf was parked by the swing.

“If they’re only nineteen and twenty,” he said, “I presume they don’t have any more children.”

“That’s right,” Skarre confirmed. “Just the one. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Afterward, when the body had been driven away, he went back to the car and let out the dog, who bounded around happily in the grass. Skarre watched the fat little beast with a mildly reprimanding smile.

“No one can accuse you of choosing him for his looks,” he commented. “He looks like a dishcloth.”

“Beauty is transient,” Sejer parried. “I’m sure you know that.”

He walked across the small jetty and stood looking out over the water, which was like a mirror. The surface gave away nothing about what had happened.

“Why did you call?” he asked, turning to Skarre. “Tell me your thoughts, and why you brought a couple of forensics with you to what was probably nothing more than a tragic accident.”

“I don’t know,” Skarre said. “The mother seems so artificial. It’s difficult to make eye contact and she’s very evasive. And, well, alarm bells started to ring, so I didn’t want to take any chances. If it is murder, she could get away with it pretty easily,” he added. “I don’t understand the law on that point, I have to say; a life is a life and we’re all of equal value.”

“Hmm,” he paused. “Not sure everyone would agree with you there. But there’s no doubt that the bond between mother and child is special. And her young age might also contribute to a more lenient sentence. Nineteen. Goodness, she started early. It will be easy for the defense to find mitigating circumstances. If there is a case and if we decide to prosecute. But we shouldn’t speculate so early on in the process. What’s your impression of the boy’s father?”

“He is extremely quiet and reserved,” Skarre said. “He’s barely said a word. They’re being held separately. They haven’t spoken since they were taken to the station. The mother went back to the house to put on some dry clothes. Holthemann has been looking after them, and he contacted a psychologist from Unicare as it’s obviously a crisis situation, whatever happened. Guilty or not, we still have a dead toddler.”

Sejer searched for a packet of Fisherman’s Friends in his pocket and popped one in his mouth.

“And you?” Skarre asked, looking at him intently. “Have you had any more of those dizzy spells that were bothering you?”

“No,” Sejer snapped. “No, I haven’t noticed anything. It must have been a virus, passed pretty quickly. Happens, I guess.”

“You’re an incredibly bad liar,” Skarre said, smiling. “Come on, let’s measure the distance from the pond to the house. I reckon it’s about one hundred and sixty-five feet. And that’s nothing for a little lad out exploring.”

HER BODY WOULD
not be still and her hands scuttled around on the table looking for something to do.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, her voice fraught with anxiety. Hmm, Holthemann thought, she’s squeaking like a mouse in a cat’s paw.

“We don’t think anything at the moment,” he replied. “Like I said, we have certain procedures. We just need to take down a statement and then you can go. Don’t upset yourself about it; it’s something we do whenever there’s a sudden death. There are rules that have to be followed, so relax.”

“He’d just learned to walk,” she said. “He was playing on his blanket on the floor, then all of a sudden he wasn’t there.”

“What were you doing?” Holthemann inquired.

“I was doing the housework. I don’t remember exactly; everything’s so muddled.”

She paused and a deep furrow ran across her forehead.

“I think I was preparing food,” she added, having seemingly made up her mind.

“You were making supper?” Holthemann asked in a friendly voice.

She thought again, trying to imagine the situation. Her voice was high and childlike, and Holthemann smiled. The smile made his otherwise stern face a little softer.

“Yes, that’s right. I was cleaning a fish. At least, I think I was. And I’m not very good at it, so it took awhile. Yes, sorry, my head is a bit of a mess, but I remember I was preparing the fish. And Nicolai was down in the cellar repairing a bike, because that’s his hobby. I just don’t understand it,” she wailed. “I don’t understand!” She burst into tears again, and kneaded the tissue in her hand, unable to control herself. She looked terrified, as if she still could not grasp what had happened, had not fully accepted it—that her child was dead and gone forever. The boy she had loved, because she really had, was now no more than a tiny bundle wrapped in a sheet, on its way to the criminal pathology lab to be examined externally and internally.

“Is there anything I can get you?” the chief superintendent asked. Despite his tough image, he thought it was important to show understanding. “Would you like a drink? Can I get you some water?”

“I just want Nicolai,” she sobbed.

The chief leaned forward and patted her on the arm. “You’ll be able to speak to a psychologist soon,” he said. “He’ll help you sort things out in your mind. Because it’s all over the place right now, isn’t it?”

She started to dry her tears. She was only nineteen years old and she seemed even younger, slender as a reed, with fair, almost white hair. She wore long, dangly earrings and pink nail polish. Her top was far too short and showed her belly, golden-brown after all the sun this summer and adorned with a small, silken pearl in her navel.

“Tommy’s only sixteen months old,” she cried. “I tried mouth-to-mouth, really I did, but it was too late. His lips were all blue. I don’t know if I did it right either; it looks so easy on TV. And I couldn’t do the heart massage, because I didn’t dare press too hard. I was scared I’d break his bones, because he’s only little. And if I’d broken some of his ribs, they could have punctured his lungs. I kept thinking things like that, because I’ve heard those things happen.”

“Take it easy now,” Holthemann said. “We’re going to go through everything in detail. The inspector will take statements from you and Nicolai. Then we can draw up the whole incident and make sure we’ve got it right.”

She put her hands on the table and scrunched the tissue into a damp ball.

“But I’ve said everything I’ve got to say,” she sobbed. “There’s nothing more to tell. I found him by the jetty.”

She suddenly looked him straight in the eye and was very determined. “I know that it was my fault. You might as well just say it, I know what you’re thinking. I should have paid more attention, but I was only away for a few minutes. I only went into the bathroom.”

“We’ll come back to things like blame later,” Holthemann said. “We’ll have to establish first if anyone is to blame at all. Sadly, accidents happen every day, and this time it was your turn.”

She pushed her chair out from the table, leaned forward over her knees, and stayed like that for some time, as if she was about to faint.

“There’re spots dancing in front of my eyes,” she said, exhausted. Her voice was thin and frail, barely audible.

“Yes, it’s the stress,” Holthemann explained. “It affects the muscles around your eyes, but it’s not dangerous. Just relax. Try to breathe normally and it will pass.”

“I just want to talk to Nicolai,” she begged. “Is he sitting somewhere all on his own?”

“No, he’s with an officer. I’ll go and get you something to drink. And then we’ll contact your parents. They live here in town, don’t they?”

“Yes, they live in Møllergata,” she said. “Mom won’t be able to cope with this, nor will Dad. He’s already had one heart attack. The year before last, and we were beside ourselves. I don’t see why I have to sit here,” she complained. “I want to be with Nicolai; you can’t refuse me. Damn you!”

Holthemann didn’t have an answer. He often fell a bit short when it came to people in need. But everything had been done on Jacob Skarre’s request: he’d said that this was an accidental drowning that they might want to investigate in more detail, just in case. He got up, left her alone in the room, and went to the staff room where there was a fridge full of cold drinks. He took out a bottle of mineral water and walked back before he realized that he’d forgotten to take a plastic cup from the holder. He headed back to the staff room, got one, and returned to the room where she was sitting. He handed her the cup and helped her open the bottle.

“You will get all the support and understanding you’re entitled to, believe me. Now, have a drink,” he ordered. “The shock is making you thirsty.”

MAYBE HE’D BEEN
killed, thrown in the pond, unwanted by his mother, Sejer thought. Or by his father, or both. A child who was different, a deviant—perhaps in some people’s eyes, a loser. A sudden rage, a mean thought, an urge to destroy. Or was he seeing ghosts in broad daylight? The door into the garden was open. There was no one watching the boy and he tottered out of the house and across the dry grass on his plump little legs, walking the short distance from the house to the jetty. Drawn by the glittering water that lay like a mirror in front of him. I’m not being prejudiced, Sejer thought. I must take absolutely every possibility into consideration. I’ve done this job long enough, that’s how I work. Anything is possible in this case. A simple, clear rule that always helped him focus. Too many bitter experiences, he thought, and I don’t like to be duped or lied to. As he drove, he thought about his parents again, and all that they had given him as a little boy. Love and understanding, leniency. Encouragement and confidence, an understanding that life was not easy, for better or for worse. Careful now, he said to himself; they’re probably both innocent. But Skarre had expressed clear concern. He thought about it and what it might mean. Intuition was important and definitely had a role to play in every investigation. Having a feeling about something, the seed of suspicion that something is wrong. It might be a lack of eye contact or a strange distance to what had happened. A body that won’t be still, restless and nervous hands, a monotone voice when giving a statement. The sequence of events rattled off as if learned by rote, a kind of planned version. A hand that constantly dabs the eyes to dry imaginary tears or, for that matter, real tears. Because everything had gone so terribly wrong, with or without blame. Or horror that an emotion could be so catastrophic. I’m going to kill you now because it’s unbearable. I can’t stand this child, can’t cope with this child, and other impossible emotions. All these different signs of lies. And a depressing thought kept coming back. The child had Down syndrome. Another reason for this unease. Even though the public prosecutor would only consider the facts of the case, these gut instincts were incredibly important. They were based on the experience that they had built up over all their years with the police. Skarre had noticed some nuances that he couldn’t explain, that had made him think twice. Sejer took this seriously because Skarre was smart. And pretty good in his observations. Two parents sitting in the station crying their hearts out, but were they tears of loss and grief, or were they tears of shock and panic because they were guilty?