wouldn't everything come out? Who they were, what they had done?
He'd rather be alone for the rest of his life than have to take the blame for that baby. He had to fix his eyes on something. Study every little detail, describe it accurately and exactly in his mind. The way prisoners did when they sat in their cells. The man's tie. Grey-blue with a tiny embroidered cherry motif.
'Zipp. There's something I have to tell you.' Now it was coming! He knew it! His hairline, straight and even, and his thick hair the colour of steel.
'You've wrapped yourself up in a great feeling of calm. That's no art. Anyone can do that. I can't reach you. But what you're doing demands deep concentration.'
Some speech! He must have learned it on a course. His hands were big, the fingers long, the nails clean and white. Fucking meticulous, this man. In his lapel there was a pin that looked like an umbrella.
'The problem is that deep concentration takes so much energy. You can hold on to it for a while, but then it slips away from you. Tell me what you know. What you are doing is just a delay. And a delay wastes time. Time we could be using to find Andreas. We could call his mother and say: 'We've found him, Mrs Winther. And he's all right'.' He leaned across the desk. ''Thanks to Zipp, who came to his senses.''
I'm not coming to my senses, it's as simple as that. I don't care, I just don't give a damn.
'It's impossible for anyone to hold on to anger for a prolonged period of time. It's driven by hormones, and that's not something you can control. It can shoot up like a geyser. You're at that age. In time you'll stop feeling what you feel now and slip into something else . . .'
'Shut up!' Zipp was shaking violently. 'You can't touch me!'
Sejer smiled sadly. 'Are you so sure of that? Don't you read the newspapers?' He lowered his voice. 'If you only knew how angry I can get.' He stood up and pushed back his chair. Straightened his jacket. Looked at Zipp. His smile was almost jovial. Zipp tried to steel himself.
'You can go home now.'
He stayed where he was, gaping. There must be some mistake. If he got up and walked across the room, maybe he would stick out his foot to trip him.
'G-go home?'
'Lie down in your warm bed. Send Andreas a kind thought.'
Zipp tried to be happy that he'd managed to keep his mouth shut, but he didn't feel happy, just empty. What about the baby? he thought. They didn't know anything about that. That was something, at least. The minutes passed. He was still whole. He slipped past the man. He reached only as high as his lapels. But he saw the pin. It was actually a little gold sky diver.
C H A P T E R 1 7
Anna Fehn opened the door and looked at Sejer. She liked what she saw, but at the same time she felt anxious. The painting of Andreas stood on the easel, half finished. And now a policeman had come here to ask questions. How much should she tell him? What would he think? He didn't sit down when she pointed to the sofa.
'Why are you here? How did you find me?' He smiled briefly. 'This is a small town. I'm just curious. Would it be possible to see the painting of Andreas that you've been working on?'
She led the way into another, bigger and brighter, space. The easel stood to the right of the window so that the light fell on it from the left. Sejer didn't recognise Andreas because the boy stood with his face tilted down, his eyes fixed on a spot on the floor. But the hair, maybe, the wild curls. Otherwise it was his body that she had wanted to portray. Sejer was struck by just how naked he was, more naked than he would have looked in a photograph. The body was in violent motion, more defined than his age would indicate. He was painted in blues and greens, only his hair was red.
'Does he like it? Posing?'
She nodded. 'He seems to. He's good-looking, and he knows it.' She laughed softly. 'The first time he saw it, he said: 'Shit, that's fucking awesome!'' Sejer stuck his face close to the canvas. 'It must take a certain kind of person. To pose like that.'
'Why so?'
He shrugged. 'I'm trying to imagine myself in the same situation. How uncomfortable I would feel.'
'Maybe you take yourself too seriously.' She noticed his eyes, which weren't brown, as she at first thought, but deep grey. His hair must have been raven black at one time. She guessed that he was a practical type; his hair was cut very short and he carried himself with controlled grace, without being ostentatious. Mature, she thought.
'Do the two of you do anything else besides pose and paint?'
She had been afraid of the question, but was unprepared for the speed with which it came. Was he being impudent or just unusually acute?
'Sometimes,' she said evasively.
'Have a bite to eat together, or sometimes a beer?'
She coughed. 'Er, yes. Sometimes.'
'Sometimes what?'
He stared her down. A tiny smile took the sting out of his dark gaze. She started fidgeting with a brush sticking out of a jar. Stroked her chin with the soft bristles.
'We sleep together.'
'Who took the initiative?'
'I did. What did you expect?' The reply was followed by dry laughter.
Sejer looked at the painting again, saw the enthusiasm in every stroke. The young body in which everything was tautly in place. And the force in it, the youth. Anna Fehn was in her early forties and Andreas was 18. Well, it was a familiar story. She looked at the floor. 'To be honest, he never really seems to like it. But he does it anyway. As if he thinks it's expected of him, or that it's required, I'm not really sure which. I often wonder. Why he puts himself at my disposal like that.' Sejer could understand perfectly why a young man like Andreas would grab such a chance if it was offered to him. Anna Fehn was not a dazzling beauty, but she was very attractive. Blonde and voluptuous.
'Do you know his friend? Zipp?'
'Andreas has mentioned him. In a patronising kind of way. As if he's impossibly hopeless.'
'They've been friends for years.'
'Yes. And I wonder whether his dissatisfaction is just a cover. That it's actually hiding great emotion. So great that it bothers him.'
'What are you getting at?'
She went over to the window where the pale light fell across the naked body on the canvas.
'Call it woman's intuition, but I think that Andreas . . . There's no passion in him. You can feel. . . a certain lack of interest. I think he prefers boys. I think he's in love with Zipp.'
Sejer stared at her in shock.
'Forgive me if I'm starting a hare. But I think I'm no more than a cover for him. Something he can brag about to others.'
To Zipp, Sejer wondered. 'He doesn't spend time with anyone else except Zipp.'
'I know.'
'But you're not positive about this?'
'At times it's quite blatant. I've had lots of models over the years, and many of them have been homosexual.'
'What are the signs that make you think so?'
'I think we girls can see it faster than men. Think about it. I look at you. You look at me. We each think our own thoughts. We do this in a split second, before anything else. We appraise one another. Will I make love with this man, with this woman? Yes or no? When we've decided that, then we move on and attend to whatever is our real objective. And we can put the tension aside. But its always there to begin with. A tension that we get so used to throughout our lives that we don't even think about it. Until one day we're confronted with a man, and the tension isn't there. That's a strange experience. It makes us relax. Girls enjoy the company of homosexual men,' she said. 'Men evidently don't feel as comfortable in the company of lesbians. Isn't that strange?' She suddenly
