He stepped back and stopped to listen. Cautiously he moved a few paces in a different direction. Something crashed with the sound of metal striking the floor. He had knocked over a heater. And then he found a step. A stairway leading up from the cellar into the house. That must mean that a light switch would be at the top. He crept up the stairs, his ears pricked. What was the soft thing he had stepped on? What if the woman came back?
Why would she? Maybe she had forgotten something. That was always happening, at least in films. He kept on up the stairs, counting the steps. His head hit the ceiling. An old-fashioned trap door. He searched for the switch, running his fingers along the walls, getting a few splinters in his skin. There it was at last: a switch. He twisted it on, heard a reluctant click, and the light went on, a bare bulb hanging from a cord. It lit up slowly, as if the cord were worn out and needed to take its time. He turned round and stared down into the circle of light. Caught sight of a plastic tarpaulin. It was covering something at the foot of the stairs. Good God! For a dizzying second he thought it looked like a body underneath. It did look as if it was a body. But that wasn't possible. No. It was probably just an old blanket that hadn't made it to the rubbish heap yet. She must have just thrown it down here. He would go back down and find out what it was. Because it couldn't possibly be . . . He crept down the stairs. What the hell am I doing here, what the hell is going on? I'm really asleep on the sofa at home. He sniffed, wiped his nose on the back of his hand. He was at the bottom of the steps. Looked around, running his eyes over the filthy plastic. Something white and moist. He bent down, but he was blocking the light and had to move to one side. Picked up a corner of the plastic, which rustled.
'No! Dear God, no!'
His shout slammed against the walls, reverberating around the room. He lurched back, throwing out his arms to find some kind of support. It searched the dark corners, saw a workbench, an old bicycle, a bin for potatoes. Potatoes, he thought. Everything was so strange. Get the fuck out of here!
Then a door slammed. Someone walked across the floor overhead, swift footsteps. He glanced at the light, caught sight of the door he had come through. Then he didn't think any more, just dashed out, closed the door carefully behind him, and squeezed into a corner. Waiting. She had come back. She was insane! He imagined her coming down the stairs with an axe. A chair scraped overhead. Zipp stared at the door. If she opened the trap door, she would see the light. He had to escape without making any noise, get out the same way he had come, through the window. But he couldn't reach it. What about the sledge against the wall? He could stand on that. Claw his way out and run. Call the police. The woman was off her head, she had to be locked up. Suddenly he heard new sounds.
Creaking wood, jangling chains. Footsteps on the stairs. She would see the light was on. Zipp thought: I'll strike first. He looked around for something to use as a weapon. A bottle would do. They were lined up on the shelves, containing juice and wine. He crept over to them, shifting his weight with care from his heel to the ball of his foot. Took a bottle from the shelf and got a good grip around the neck. He stationed himself at the door and stood there with the bottle in his shaking hand. He was trembling so hard that his teeth started to chatter. Come on, God damn it, I'm going to knock your fucking head off! He heard the footsteps. And then all was quiet again. What was she doing now? Wondering about the light? Horrible shuffling footsteps moved across the cement. He pressed his body against the cold wall and stared at the narrow opening in the doorway. Slowly, it opened wider. He took a deep breath and raised the bottle just as her head appeared in the doorway.
In a flash he saw her heavy jaw and the deep-set eyes. Then he slammed the bottle down onto the side of her head. Her knees gave way and her back struck the heavy door. She fell forward, right against his chest. Zipp screamed like a wild animal and leaped back. She fell to the floor, landing on her stomach. Her forehead rested on his sneaker, and he had to yank it away. Her head hit the floor with a little thud. He was amazed that the bottle hadn't broken. He stared at her for one wild moment, then dropped the bottle, which did then break, and he recognised the smell of sour wine spreading through the cellar room. Her heavy body filled the doorway. He tried to step over her, but his foot touched her back and he nearly toppled over. He staggered, then regained his balance. Ran out, past the tarpaulin. Reached the stairs, heard his own rasping breath and knew by the way he was breathing that a terrible thing had happened. The body under the plastic had been smashed to pulp. Inside him a voice shrieked: Your fault! Your fault!
The trap door stood open and a light was on in the kitchen. He scrambled up the steps and stood looking around the blue room. He went back to the opening and looked down. The cadaver under the plastic seemed to gape up at him. He grabbed the trap door and let it fall. It's over, he thought. Like a gunshot, the trap door slammed shut. It's over. Destroyed, smashed to pulp, unrecognisable. But that yellow shirt! Then he stormed out.
Sejer could only think of a dead tree. The woman was still upright, but all her strength had gone. It didn't matter to her whether or not he caught a couple of miserable purse snatchers. Her baby was dead. For more than three decades she had lived without the child. How attached could she be to a child she had known for only four months. Until death do us part, he thought. He also thought about the phenomenon of time and how it had a capacity to make things pass, to make things fade, if nothing else. He let her stand there in silence. In the meantime he remembered what the doctor had said. That an autopsy would be performed on the boy. That, in all probability, his fall from the pram had nothing to do with his death. It was just a tragic, frightening coincidence. It wouldn't do any good to tell that to the mother now. She had made up her mind. Two young men had killed the most precious thing she possessed. Not that she was thinking about them. She wasn't thinking about anything; she was just letting time run listlessly along. Now and again she would blink; her eyelids would droop and then, with what looked like great difficulty, they would open wide.
'Won't you sit down?'
She dropped on to a chair. Her beige coat no longer looked like a piece of clothing, but rather a big stretch of canvas that someone had draped across her shoulders.
'Tell me everything you can remember about what they looked like,' he said.
'I can't remember anything,' she replied. Her voice was flat. She may have taken some kind of medication. A kind-hearted doctor hadn't been able to stand seeing her pain.
'Yes, you can,' he told her. 'It's possible to recall bits and pieces if you concentrate.'
Concentrate? The word made her raise her head and look at him in disbelief. She barely had the strength to keep herself sitting upright on the chair.
'Why should I help you?' she said, her voice faint.
'Because we're talking about two men who need to understand the gravity of what they did. We won't be able to prove that they're responsible for your son's death, but it will give them an almighty shock. And perhaps prevent them from doing any such thing again.'
'I don't care about that.' Once more she raised her head to look at him. 'And you don't even believe what you're saying. If they kill a baby every week from now on – I still don't care.' He searched for something to say that might rouse her. 'Maybe you don't care right now,' he said, 'but what about a year from now? Then you'll start to worry because you didn't do anything. You'll worry at the thought that they're still going around as if nothing had happened.'
She gave a tired laugh. Sejer got up and walked to the window, as he often did. Rain was streaming down the pane. So unaffected, so untouched. And that prompted the thought that something would still be untouched after everything else had vanished. And would keep running, floating on the wind, pounding against the rocks, salty and hard.
'But you're here,' he said, turning round. 'So I have to think that you might be able to help. Or else why did you come? I had given up hope, and we have lost a lot of time.'
His words made her look at him, she was more alert now.
'Well, no,' she stammered. 'I was hoping for an explanation. There's always an explanation, isn't there?'
An explanation? As if he had one. Instead he shook his head. 'You can help me,' he said softly.
'Even though I can't help you. And in that sense, it was a little awkward to ask you to come here. But if we cannot – with your help – resolve the matter, you may end up feeling regret, and by then it will also be harder to remember things.'
'One of them wore a cap.' The words slipped out, quietly, reluctantly.
'A cap?' he said. 'Let me guess. It was probably red.'
He saw a glimpse of a smile as she said, 'No, it was blue. With white letters. And a little white cross. Do you hear me? A white cross!'
He could feel that something had broken the ice. For the first time she relaxed.
