'Einar had her suitcase.'
'He's a coward, plain and simple.'
'I don't trust Lillian Sunde.' Jacob looked his boss in the eyes. 'I think she's lying to us.'
'Absolutely. But not about that particular night.'
Skarre bowed his head and looked down at his knees. Then he summoned up his last remaining courage. 'To be honest, I'm not sure what I believe. Perhaps he's innocent. Did you hear about the letter Holthemann received?'
'Oh yes, I heard about it. An anonymous letter written with words cut from newspapers. 'You have got the wrong man.' I also heard about the woman caller who claimed to be a clairvoyant.'
'She said the same thing,' Skarre said.
'Precisely. And if the duty officer had half a brain he would have noted down her name and number.'
'You wouldn't work with a clairvoyant, would you?'
'Not on her terms. She might not be a clairvoyant at all, but she might have known something vital about the murder. Soot thought she was a time-waster. I told him off,' he said.
'You did indeed,' Skarre said. 'They heard you all the way down to the canteen.'
'My own mother even wagged her finger at me.' Sejer smiled wistfully.
'But your mother's dead?'
'That gives you some idea of how loud I shouted. I have apologised to Soot.'
'What about Elise?' Skarre said. 'Do you ever hear from her?'
Silence fell over Sejer's flat.
'Elise never scolds,' he said at last.
It was late in the evening when Skarre got up to find his jacket. The dog padded after him to wish him goodbye. Its legs were weak, but they were growing stronger day by day. As they stood there saying their farewells, they were startled by the doorbell angrily buzzing. Sejer, puzzled, looked at the time: it was close to midnight. A woman was standing on the threshold. He stared at her for a while before he realised who she was.
'I am sorry for coming so late,' she said. 'But I won't keep you. I have only one important thing to say.'
Sejer squeezed the door handle. The woman confronting him was Goran's mother.
'Do you have children?' she said, staring hard at him. Her voice was trembling. He saw her chest rise and fall under her coat. Her face was white.
'Yes,' Sejer said.
'I don't know how well you know them,' she said, 'but I know Goran very well. I know him like my own body, and he didn't do this.'
Sejer stared at her feet. She was wearing brown ankle boots.
'I would have known it,' she said. 'The dog scratched him. No-one would believe it, but I saw him that evening on the 20th. I was by the window, washing up, when he came through the gate. He was carrying his sports bag, and when he saw the dog, he dropped the bag and they started playing. He's fond of the dog and they play pretty roughly. Rolled around like kids. His face was scratched and there was blood on him when he came into the house. He took a shower then, and he was singing.'
She said no more for a while. Sejer waited.
'It's God's honest truth,' she said. 'That's all I wanted to say.' She spun round and started down the stairs.
Sejer stood for a while, recovering. Then he closed the door. Skarre looked at him in astonishment.
'He
The words seemed to hang in the hallway. Sejer went back into his living room and gazed out of the window. He watched Helga Seter cross the car park below the flats.
'Would someone sing in the shower having done a thing like that?'
'By all means. But not from joy, perhaps,' Sejer said.
'What are you thinking?' Sejer asked him.
'Lots of things. Linda Carling, and who she is, what she did actually see, Goran Seter, who is at the mercy of all these unreliable people.'
'You want the loose ends neatly tied at the end,' Sejer said. 'You want every last piece of the jigsaw in place. Because people are like that. Reality is different. Just because some of the pieces don't fit doesn't mean that Goran is innocent.'
He turned his back to him.
'But it's bloody annoying, nevertheless.' Skarre refused to back down.
'Yes,' Sejer conceded. 'It's bloody annoying.'
'I'll tell you one thing,' Skarre admitted. 'If I were on that jury when the case comes to court, I would never dare convict him.'
'You're not going to be on the jury,' Sejer said. He breathed on the window. 'And of course Goran's a wonderful son to his mother. He's her only child.'
'So what do you really think happened?' Skarre said, still in doubt.
Sejer sighed and turned around. 'I think that Goran drove around after the murder, in terrible despair. He'd already changed his clothes once and now the clothes he'd changed into were covered in blood. He had to get back into the house. Possibly he spotted his mother in the kitchen window. The blood on his clothes needed an explanation. So he throws himself at the dog. That way he could account for the scratches and the blood.'
Suddenly he chuckled.
'What's funny?' Skarre said.
'I was reminded of something. Did you know that a rattlesnake can bite you long after it's head has been chopped off?'
Skarre watched his friend's broad silhouette by the window, waiting for enlightenment.
'Shall I call you a taxi?' Sejer continued without turning around.
'No, I'll walk.'
'It's a long way,' he said. 'And black as night in that stairwell of yours.'
'It's a lovely evening, and I need the fresh air.'
'So you're not worried?' Sejer gave him an affectionate smile, but it was a serious question all the same.
Skarre gave him no answer. He left, and Sejer stood again by the window. Gold buttons, he thought, taking them from his shirt pocket. Slashed tyres. Newspaper cuttings about a young man found bleeding to death in the street. What did it mean? Then Jacob appeared in the streetlight. He walked with long, brisk steps away from the block of flats and out on the road. Then he was swallowed up by the darkness.
Two men sat together in Einar's Cafe. It was past closing time, everyone else had gone. Mode appeared calm, the hand holding his glass steady. Einar was smoking roll-ups. Faint music was coming from the radio. Einar had lost weight. He worked longer hours and ate less now that he was on his own. Mode was unchanged. Mode was in fact abnormally self-possessed, Einar thought, watching him covertly. So unchanged. He had closed up the petrol station for the night. From the window they could see the yellow shell light up the darkness.
'Why didn't they ever talk to you?' Einar demanded to know.
'They did.'
Einar sniffed. 'But they never checked your alibi and all that.'
'They had no reason to either.'
'But they checked everyone else's very carefully. Mine. Frank's. Not to mention Goran's.'
'Well, you did have the suitcase,' Mode said. 'Hardly any wonder they checked up on you.'
'But you must've been driving home from bowling at Randskog around the time of the murder.'
'What do you know about that?' Mode said, barely audibly.
'Been talking to people. You have to, if you want to keep yourself in the know. Tommy reckoned you left at 8.30 p.m.'
'Ah,' Mode said, smiling winningly. 'So you take it upon yourself to go around checking people's alibis. But Goran confessed. So I suppose this is just a joke, no?'
'But he withdrew it. And what if he's not convicted?' Einar said. 'We'll have the murder hanging over us forever. We will always be suspecting each other.'
