When the Devil Holds the Candle (22 page)

"That colostomy bag," he went on. "That's nothing. If only you knew. I walk around carrying my own burden, my own secret. Well, I won't be doing any more walking. But it's damned heavy nonetheless." His voice sank to a whisper. I moved a step closer. "It's fucking awful," he said, sniffling. He couldn't get enough air into his lungs to cry properly, and that made him seem so pitiful. It's better to be angry, it's an easier emotion, more detached. But now other, more troublesome feelings were slowly coming to life in me. I felt overwhelmed. That handsome
face was most handsome when all its malice was gone and only the child was there to see. His lips quivered, and he blinked to stop the tears from spilling out. I remembered when Ingemar was little, the smell of him, the soap and lotion. His round skull, so terrifyingly fragile. The way Andreas was fragile now.

"The baby," he said. "At Furulund. The baby that died. That was Zipp and me."

His jaw went slack. For a moment it looked as if he had slipped into a coma. A big bubble of spit grew between his lips.

"The baby?" I said in surprise.

He swallowed with difficulty. "We were going to steal her handbag. She was taking a walk along the shore. I don't care what happens to me now. You can do what you want."

For a long time I sat there, stunned, listening. His voice was growing more faint. "Go away," he said.

"I'll go when I feel like it. This is my house. We need to talk about this. How could the two of you be so thoughtless!"

"I know. I understand everything now. But that handbag was just a minor thing."

"Stealing handbags from people, a minor thing?"

"I understand everything now. Now that it's too late. You're fucking crazy, but there's nothing you can do to me anymore."

"Watch your mouth!" I shouted. "This conversation is over when I say so. And don't try to use what little time you have left to humiliate me. Do you understand? Get hold of yourself. Or I won't give you any more water."

"Dear Irma." His lips contorted. "You don't control me. I do. And I don't want any more water."

"So you're planning to die of thirst?"

"You die faster without water."

"Go ahead and try it. You haven't understood anything at all. If you had, you would have kept a lower profile. You should have shown me a little respect."

"I'm lying on the floor of your cellar, dying," he said dryly.

"I can't get any lower than this. Death is a liberator, Irma. I've abused my place here on earth. It's time for me to withdraw."

I didn't understand what he was babbling about. He was beginning to get confused. I stood up angrily and left. Sat at the kitchen table for quarter of an hour, thinking. After that I went back down with some warm sugar milk in the bottle. I was sure he would drink it, in spite of his little speech. He reminded me of a baby as he lay there. I had put on a cardigan so I wouldn't be cold, but it was warm down there because of the heater. I liked sitting there, looking at him. He finished drinking and was about to doze off again, but I shouted his name, over and over. "Andreas, Andreas!" And then he opened his eyes. I took the newspaper out of my apron pocket and showed him the article about him, with the nice picture. has anyone seen andreas?

Then he started to cry.

Listen to me! Again and again I went down to the cellar. Day after day. I asked him if he needed anything. Changed the light-bulb, tucked in the blanket. He started to smell. His face looked sunken and his lips were almost gray. I felt instantly happy every time I caught sight of his head with the dark curls, knowing that he was still there, making no noise. I didn't think about the future—or about the past, either, and that was something new for me. I was used to worrying about the next day and everything that might happen. But not anymore. I was living in the moment. Finally, a sort of peace.

September 4.

On the third night, Zipp opened the phone book to the letter
F.
How easy this is, he thought. Open the phone book, look for the name, and make the call. Just like that, I'm there, right in her ear. Threatening and pestering.

The phone rang and rang. He clutched the receiver in his hand.

"This is Zipp!" he cried when she answered. "I want to speak to Andreas."

There was a moment's silence. He could hear a faint rustling sound and someone breathing. Then her voice, sounding rough:

"Andreas is not available."

What did she mean by that? Not available? She was sitting on the truth with that fucking big behind of hers, like the bitch that she was. He was so distraught that his knees started to give way. That shitty feeling, when you know that someone is lying through her teeth or, to be precise, right in your ear. So easily, so utterly without shame. His own fury roared inside his head.

"I know he's there. Damn you!"

"You don't know any such thing."

Her voice was calm now. The polar opposite of his own pounding heart.

"His cap is lying on your kitchen counter."

Silence again. That gave her something to think about! He stood there fidgeting, trying to compose himself.

"You should clean up after yourself better," he snapped.

"I'm doing just fine. But have you cleaned up after yourself?"

He listened to that steady voice, trying to decipher what she was thinking. How could she be so calm?

"Yes," he replied. "I just need Andreas."

"What about the baby?"

"I don't have a baby!" he shouted. "And I don't feel like playing your games. I just want Andreas!"

"Andreas is crying," she whispered. "He's crying for the baby."

He felt a sudden stab of terror.

"The baby at Furulund. It's dead now."

Zipp stood and stared at the phone book. Funder, Furnes, Fyken. What was she talking about? He looked at the newspaper on the table, felt sure she must be bluffing.

"A head injury," she said softly. "Infants are so fragile. If you don't stop bothering me, I'll call the police and tell them that you killed him. A little boy, only four months old. They're looking for you."

"I tried to stop the stroller!" he yelled.

A tiny click, and the line went dead. Outside the window he could see the spire of the church, a crack in the blue sky. He was still shaking. A tiny baby. He had to look through the newspapers, make sure that she was lying. She was just testing him. He would read the papers himself, but first he had to try to relax. He stumbled downstairs, lay on the sofa, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. Two hours later he woke up. His mother was calling from the top of the stairs.

"Telephone! The police. They want you to go down to the station."

***

He was shaking so hard that he had to use both hands to put a five-kroner coin into the parking meter. The news about the baby was in the
Aftenposten,
for God's sake. The woman was right! Could the attack come under the heading of manslaughter? It was the mother who had failed to set the brake properly. Damn it! He felt the ground shifting under his feet, as if he were walking through a bog. A trickle of sweat ran from his temple, and he couldn't move his eyes the way he wanted to. They were staring, like two balls of glass, saying
Guilty, guilty, guilty!
He was sniffling as he fought with the fucking parking meter, that damned money hog, this damned world he'd been thrown into. Had he asked for this? Was anyone happy that he was here? He pressed his shoulders back and thought,
Pull yourself together, man. They just want to talk about Andreas.

As he walked up to the front entrance, he repeated to himself: I don't remember, I don't remember. Even if they realized that he was hiding something, they would have to prove it. He walked into the reception area and gave his name at the desk. Had to stand there, alone, and wait. A man in a uniform came toward him. Not the young guy with the curls this time. This was going to be worse. He straightened up, wanting to meet the situation with confidence, only to discover that the man was a head taller than he was. He was struck by the feeling that his case was hopeless: it would be impossible to fool this monolith. The aura of friendliness surrounding him was just a veneer; it didn't for one second hide what he was truly made of. Zipp was reminded first of iron and steel, then oiled wood, and finally, as he met the man's gray eyes, lead crystal. He felt a prod on his shoulder. It directed him to the lift, into a corner.

"Konrad Sejer."

The voice was deep, threatening. This was undoubtedly one of the bosses. Why? The man's office surprised him. It looked like any other office, with a child's drawings, photographs, thank-you
cards, things like that. A good chair and a view of the river. He could see the sightseeing ferry gliding past, must be one of the last tours of the season.

"Zipp," Sejer said, "I'm going to order some coffee. Do you drink coffee?"

"Jesus, yes."

Not a good start: his voice had wavered.
I don't remember,
I
don't remember.
Sejer left the room. Zipp wondered what the consequences would be if he lied. This was just a conversation, wasn't it? He thought of what his mother had said: "I know you." There was something about this man that gave him the same feeling. He must try to maintain a friendly tone. As long as the tone remained friendly, he was safe. Sejer came back with a coffeepot and two Styrofoam cups.

"Good of you to come," he said. As if Zipp had had a choice. The gray man knew this—he was just playing a game. Suddenly he seemed terribly dangerous. Dejection swamped Zipp, a dull fear that he wasn't going to get out of this in one piece.

"Sure. But I don't understand why I'm here," he stammered. "I told you everything about that night."

The man shot him a glance that felt like a blast.

"It's more serious now," Sejer said curtly. "Before, it was one day, but now it's three; that's a whole different story."

Zipp nodded mutely.

"For your sake, I hope we find Andreas," Sejer went on. He watched the stream of burning hot coffee trickling into the white cup.

For your sake? What the hell did he mean by that? Zipp was about to ask that very question:
What the hell do you mean by that?
Wasn't there some sort of insinuation in it? That if they didn't find him...

"He's your best friend, right?"

"Yes, he is." Zipp said. Now he felt as if that were being used against him, the fact that they were friends, that Andreas was his best pal.
Stay calm,
he told himself,
just answer the questions.

"I'm going to be honest with you," Sejer said. "I'm an old-fashioned kind of man." He gave a winning smile, one that made Zipp think he really must be nice or else one hell of an actor. He decided that the latter was more likely. "One of my officers, Jacob Skarre, has already talked to you. I'll get directly to the point. In his report, he made it clear that throughout the course of your conversation he had the strong impression that you weren't telling the truth. That's why you're here. Do you understand?"

Zipp shrugged. Calm, stay calm. Breathe from your stomach.

"The thing is, I've had experience before with Officer Skarre's intuition, and I have no choice but to take it seriously."

Zipp stretched out his legs and laid one foot over the other.

"What I've been thinking, just as a possibility," Sejer said, "is that the two of you did something together that evening that may have had an unexpected outcome. Something you've decided not to tell us, because you're afraid of the consequences."

Zipp was rolling some spit around in his mouth when the deep flow of words finally stopped. Sejer was apparently waiting for an answer.

"No objections?" he said at last.

"We were in a bar," Zipp said.

"So tell me in your own words everything that happened that night," Sejer said. He sat down in his chair and waited.

"My own words?" Zipp stammered.

"What you did, what you talked about. Maybe that will give me some idea of what's going on."

Did he know more than he was saying? Had the woman with the stroller described them down to the last detail?

"Sorry." Zipp hesitated as he searched for what the inspector had called "his own words."

"You don't have to feel embarrassed. This conversation stays in this room. You're not being taped or recorded. You can speak freely."

The way the man put things: Now he was trying to give the impression that he was an ally, but he wasn't, was he?

Zipp straightened his shoulders. "Well, there's not much to tell. We were in a bar having a beer. After that we went to my house and watched a video. Then we wandered round town for a while. Andreas went home to bed. That's all."

Sejer nodded encouragement. Zipp started to believe that this man wasn't here to ask him about the baby after all. He was indeed concerned about Andreas and nothing else. Zipp tried not to take a defensive position.

"But he didn't go home to bed," Sejer said, smiling. A new kind of smile: broad and open.

Zipp had to smile back at his own stupidity. But it was entirely innocent, it had just slipped out, apparently to his advantage, judging by the man's response.

"No, of course not. But that's what he said."

"Exactly. He had to get up early?"

"At eight."

Sejer drank some coffee. "What film did you watch?"

Did that make any difference? Did he think they watched a film that might have steered them into trouble?

"
Blade Runner,
" he mumbled, a bit reluctantly because he didn't want to show any kind of enthusiasm. Sejer noticed his slight irritation.

"I saw that one a long time ago," he said. "I didn't much like it. But then, as I said, I'm old-fashioned."

Zipp relaxed. "Andreas insisted on watching it. Even though he's seen it hundreds of times. Or something like that."

"Is that right? Hundreds of times? Were you bored?"

"I'm often bored."

"Why's that?"

"I don't have a job."

"So you wait all day for Andreas, when you can have some company?"

"He usually calls after dinner."

"When you said good-bye did you make any arrangements to meet again?"