and they can cut it into thin slices. I saw that on TV.'
'What does preserved mean?' Simon asked.
'Hardened,' said Karsten. 'They put it in something that makes it harden. But they won't have to do that with Kannick's brain – his was hardened long ago.'
'Cut that out! Let Kannick finish.'
This time it was Philip who interrupted. If those two started arguing they'd never stop. And Margunn could show up at any minute. Not that she really believed that her ban on talking about the murder would be upheld; she knew better than that. The question was how much time they now had. And how many details they could glean.
Kannick waited with the patience of a preacher, frowning at the bounty lying before him. He decided to start with the Mocca beans.
'Her body had already begun to rot,' he went on, putting extra emphasis on the word rot.
'What did you say?' Karsten snorted. 'Give me a break! It happens to take several days for a body to start rotting. If Errki hadn't even managed to leave the scene, you can't tell me that -'
'Do you know how hot it was up in the woods?' Kannick leaned forward and his voice quivered with indignation. 'It rots in a matter of minutes in that heat.'
'You haven't got a clue. I'm going to ask the police about that if they ever come here. But I guess you're not very important, Kannick, or they would have been here long ago.'
'Officer Gurvin promised that they would come.'
'We'll see about that, but cut out the stuff about rotting, because we don't believe you. I paid for the truth.'
'Fine! I can skip over the worst parts. We've got children here, after all. But going back to the hoe -'
'What kind of hoe was it?' Philip again.
'The kind you use to work the soil. To dig up potatoes and weeds. It looked like an axe with a longer shaft. In point of fact it might as well have been an axe because her head was just about split in two. And her eye had come loose and was hanging down her cheek from a single thread, and -'
Karsten rolled his eyes. 'You've been watching too many videos. Tell us about Errki,' he said.
'Who's Errki?' Simon asked. He was from a different town and hadn't been there long.
'The terror of the woods,' Karsten sneered, picking at one of his pimples. 'He's bound to get off. He always gets off. Besides, he's a real nutcase, and crazy people are never convicted. They sit in the asylum swallowing pills, and then they get out and go right on killing. If they put him in a strait-jacket he'd go on killing with his bare teeth.'
'Is he going to get out?' said Simon anxiously.
'He is out, you dope. They haven't found him yet.'
'Where is he?'
'Up there in the woods.'
Simon cast a frightened glance out of the window, up towards the trees.
'Errki may be insane, but insane is not the same as stupid,' Kannick said thoughtfully. 'He noticed that I saw him. Maybe he's going to come after me. I really should have police protection.'
He scowled at them with a worried look on his face, to see whether this piece of information had sunk in properly, whether they grasped what it meant to have such a threat hanging over him. A vengeful madman on his heels. It couldn't get any worse.
'Ha. He's probably long gone. Like you said, he's not stupid. What did he look like?' Karsten wanted to know. 'Did he have any blood on him?'
'He was standing behind a tree,' Kannick said in a low voice. 'He was standing in a funny way, with his arms hanging at his sides, staring straight ahead. He has such peculiar eyes. My uncle has Greenland dogs, and Errki has the same kind of eyes as those dogs. Sort of whitish, like a dead fish.'
He thought back to that fateful moment when he stood in Halldis's yard with his heart pounding and stared in terror up at the woods, at the black trees, and suddenly caught sight of that strange figure among the trunks. Motionless at first, but then it moved, and something dark slowly leaned forward, and only then did he realise that it was a face. A face in shadow with staring eyes. The devil himself couldn't have scared Kannick more. He ran like a hare down the road, knowing he should let go of his suitcase containing the bow and arrows, but he couldn't. He kept on running and didn't look back.
'Has he killed anyone before?' Jaffa wanted to know.
Kannick shifted his body from its lotus position and stretched his stiff legs. 'First his own mother. And then the old man up by the church,' he said brightly. 'And they still let him walk around freely. It's rotten to put a place like this,' his eyes took in the room and the courtyard, 'a building full of minors in an area where a mass murderer lives.'
'You idiot,' Karsten said. 'This home was here first, long before Errki went nuts.'
'But why isn't he kept locked up?' Simon said.
'He was. But he escaped. I expect he knocked out the night nurse and stole the keys.'
Simon had been given far more to think about than he wanted. Very slowly he moved over to Karsten and leaned against him.
'Relax, Simon. There's a lock on the door,' the older boy assured him. 'Besides, Errki's the type that can never sit still. He wanders around. Hardly ever sleeps. Right now he'll be on his way to town to kill somebody else.'
'Who?' Simon whimpered.
'Somebody chosen at random. He doesn't need to hate the person in order to kill them.'
'But then why does he kill?'
'He has to. It's an inner urge.'
Simon wanted to ask about this 'inner urge', but lost his courage. Kannick picked up the box of Mocca beans and opened the lid, plucked out the little piece of cardboard on top, and then generously passed the box around. His new status overwhelmed him. No-one had ever sat still this long listening to him before. Everyone took a handful, and for a short time no-one spoke as they all munched on the beans.
Karsten was furious. He couldn't get over the fact that he wasn't the one who had found the body. That it had to be this idiot Kannick, that he had actually seen a dead person although he was two years younger and fat. Not one of the others had seen a corpse.
'Were her eyes open?' he asked.
Kannick chewed as he paused to think. 'Wide open. Or at least the one that was still there.'
Philip broke in. 'I once heard about a girl who had a doll that came alive at night. Its fingernails started to grow. In the morning, when the girl woke up, she was blind. The doll had scratched out her eyes.'
'We're not talking about a video!' Kannick shouted. 'This is all real. The trouble with you is that you can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. That's why you're here, but I'm sure you know that already.' He closed his eyes to remember better. 'Her eye had a terrified look, as if she'd seen the Devil himself.'
'That's not so very far from the truth,' Karsten said. 'I wonder if he said anything to her before he did it. Or whether he just stormed towards her and cracked her in the head. Was she lying on the front doorstep?'
'Yes.'
'With her head out on the steps or in the doorway?'
'Out on the steps.'
'That means he must have been inside the house,' said Karsten. 'Looking for some chocolate, I should think.'
'If he asked her for some, she would have given it to him.'
'Errki doesn't ask for anything, he just takes it. Everybody knows that.'
Suddenly they all gave a start. The door opened, and there stood Margunn.
'Don't you look snug!'
She stared at the little group of boys sitting in watchful silence, chewing on the chocolate. No-one was going to tell her that they didn't know how to create a cosy atmosphere, even in this soulless place. She knew what they were up to, but she was still proud of them.
'Who's telling stories?' she asked innocently.
The boys stared at the floor. Even Karsten fluttered his eyelashes.
