Farm?
He is startled by a thud on the wall. He hears squeals of laughter coming from the living room. Pal’s laughter always makes him smile. Footsteps disappear and new footsteps approach. The bedroom door opens. Thorleif jumps again, then he sees Julie stop on the threshold. Even the sight of her pout is enough to take his breath away.
‘What is it, sweetheart?’
‘Pal says I’m rubbish at drawing.’
‘Does he now?’ Thorleif says in a gentle voice. ‘Don’t listen to him, my love. Pal is just showing off to Endre. You’re great at drawing. Did I hear Mummy say that you’ve learned to draw hearts?’
Julie’s face explodes in a smile. ‘Can I show you?’
‘Yes, please!’
Little feet patter across the floorboards. Thirty seconds later she returns to the bedroom holding a sheet of paper in her hand.
‘Look, Daddy.’ Beaming with pride she shows him the heart drawn in fat red pen.
‘Well, I never,’ he enthuses. ‘What a fantastic heart.’
‘Would you like me to draw you one?’
‘Would you?’
Another broad smile followed by running feet. Thorleif straightens up and looks at the heart. It resembles a pair of buttocks. But it is a heart. The finest heart he has ever seen.
It gives him an idea.
‘Julie?’ he calls out.
‘Yesss?’
‘Why don’t you bring your colouring pencils in here? Then I can watch you while you draw?’
‘Would you like that, Daddy?’
‘Yes, absolutely. Perhaps I could do a bit of drawing myself.’
‘Yesss!’
Shortly afterwards she comes running across the floor. Thorleif hears her drop the box, and all the colouring pencils fall out and roll across the floor.
‘Oh,’ Julie cries out.
‘Never mind, my love,’ he says. ‘Just pick them up again.’
‘You need to help me.’
Thorleif sighs in the knowledge that the job will never be done unless he gets out of bed and picks up every single pencil with the possible exception of one or two. So that’s what he does: he gets up. His whole body aches, but it is re-energised by his idea. He goes out into the living room and can see no sign of Pal, Endre or Elisabeth.
‘Come on,’ he says, picking up the last pencil. ‘We need to find something we can rest the paper on so we don’t accidentally draw on the bed linen. Or Mummy will be cross.’
‘We’re going to draw in bed?’
‘Yes. And we’ll build ourselves a tent so we can sit inside it and draw. Won’t that be fun?’
‘Lots of fun!’
‘Come on.’
He nudges her, picks up two newspapers from the coffee table and crawls back into bed. They wrap the duvets around themselves. Thorleif sits upright so the duvets form a wall around them. Julie puts newspaper under the paper she is going to draw on.
‘Listen,’ he says to get her attention. She doesn’t respond, she’s busy deciding which colours to use. ‘Do we have any crisps?’
Now Julie looks at him. ‘But, Daddy, it’s not Saturday.’
‘No, I know. But we could pretend,’ he whispers. Julie’s face lights up.
‘Run off and get some. Make sure nobody sees you. Or at least not Mummy.’
‘Okay, Daddy.’
Her feet dart across the floor. She soon returns with a crumpled bag in her hands. Her face is glowing. Julie climbs back into bed and gives the bag to Thorleif. He opens it and offers it to her first. Julie takes out a single crisp that soon crunches between her teeth. She smiles again.
‘Take care not to leave crumbs,’ Thorleif whispers. ‘Mummy mustn’t find out what we’ve been up to, do you understand?’
Julie sends him a conspiratorial smile and nods her head as she munches happily. Thorleif takes the bag and helps himself to some crisps. The salt stings his taste buds and almost makes them shrivel. He holds out the bag to Julie while he looks at her. She takes some more crisps and carries on drawing. One heart after another. Red and yellow, black and purple.
‘Daddy, are you crying?’
‘No,’ he sniffles.
‘So why are your cheeks wet?’
‘Because.’
He looks at her for a long time: at her swift movements, her tangled hair, the traces of tomato sauce at the corners of her mouth. He removes a strand of hair from her eyes.
‘It’s going to be really good,’ he says, pointing to her drawing.
‘What are you going to draw, Daddy?’ she asks him.
Thorleif looks at the red heart and turns over the paper before he looks up at the ceiling, scanning the room for something small and round that might be a camera. But he sees nothing. Even so he bends down and speaks carefully into her ear.
‘I’m going to draw a car,’ he whispers. ‘A really fine car.’
Chapter 42
Henning buys a baguette from Deli de Luca on his way home and eats it as he walks. The thought of what awaits him makes him speed up.
Heidi let him have the rest of the week off though she couldn’t refrain from sighing heavily when he refused to give her a reason. Instead she said, ‘Fine. You need it. You look dreadful.’
Henning said nothing.
Back in his flat he sits down on the sofa and takes out the mini cassettes with his initials on. He peels off the tape, scrunches it into a ball and throws it on the kitchen floor. None of the tapes are labelled with a date or year, and it’s impossible to see if some of them are more used than others.
Henning finds his old tape recorder in the driftwood cupboard, plugs in the power cable and inserts the first cassette. Soon he hears his own voice.
What did you think of Statoil’s handling of this matter?
The reply is provided by a female voice he can’t identify.
Statoil’s promises concerning my role and the company’s self-imposed obligations in respect of human rights were false and misleading. This individual case is symptomatic of a greater problem.
Henning fast-forwards. The woman’s voice follows him for twelve minutes and thirty-six seconds before another woman’s voice appears after a short break. Henning recognises the voice immediately.
The man was stabbed in the chest. He has been taken to Ulleval Hospital, but his condition is unknown. His attacker appears to be a woman and she is now in police custody.
The voice belongs to Assistant Commissioner Pia Nokleby and is professional and grave as it always is when he asks her for a quote or two on the record. Henning fast-forwards through a story about sexual abuse of schoolchildren before he works out that this tape must have been recorded at least one year before Jonas died. He finds a marker pen, puts a big black cross on that cassette and inserts the next.
It’s going to be a long night.
