She did not want to sound petty, and they had invited Kjell and Irmelin over before, but it had always been for dinner. Then she realised what this was really about. Reinhardt was dying to tell them his news, he had something to treat them to, and it was more than likely that he would drone on the whole night about Jonas August. He would bask in the limelight and she would feel ashamed. There was something about the way he was dealing with this which she despised, though whether or not her own approach was superior or nobler she found difficult to tell.
'You could have asked me,' she repeated, hurt. She resumed polishing the silver; she could see her face now in the base of the candelabra.
He rustled his newspaper angrily. 'I don't need your permission to invite a friend round,' he said. 'I live here too, it's my house.'
It's my house. As if he let her live there out of the goodness of his heart. She did not reply, her throat swelled up. She finished the candelabra and got a candle from a kitchen drawer, then she found a match and lit it, inhaling the comforting smell of burnt sulphur. She stood for a while gazing at the restless flame.
'It's flickering,' she said. 'Look.'
Reinhardt looked up. 'Must be a draught somewhere.'
'There's no draught. Nothing is open.'
'Turn on the radio, please,' Reinhardt asked her. 'The news will be on soon. We need to find out if there have been any developments.'
She did as he had asked. A woman was reporting on the body found in Linde Forest.
'He was an only child,' Kristine whispered.
The thought saddened her. It meant that someone was left alone now, robbed of everything.
'A man wearing a blue anorak,' Reinhardt said, 'who was seen leaving in a pale car.' But we gave them so much more information. I mean, about how he was dressed. He was limping too, why didn't she say anything about that?'
Kristine shrugged. 'Well, he wasn't really limping,' she said. 'He just walked in an odd way. Perhaps we were mistaken, perhaps we can't rely on our memories. Besides,' she added, 'we disagreed about several things.'
'No,' he said firmly. 'We did not disagree and we are not mistaken. Nothing wrong up here,' he added, tapping his temple with his finger. He returned to his newspaper; that, too, was crammed with stories about Jonas August. Kristine let her head sink back against the headrest of her armchair, folded her hands in her lap and tried to relax. It was quiet until the doorbell rang in the hall. Reinhardt shot up from the sofa, Kristine remained in the armchair watching the flickering candle.
The guests entered the living room, smiling. Irmelin held a potted plant in her hands, a small begonia. Reinhardt disappeared into the basement and returned with a three-litre box of Chablis.
'Get the glasses, Kristine, would you?' he called out. Their guests sat down at the table, Irmelin, dark and slender, Kjell, sturdy with thinning hair. He started talking about his job; he was a chiropractor and the others listened. A teenage girl had thrown up all over his coat because she could not bear the sound of bones cracking. A colleague was involved in some awful case where a woman had been paralysed from the waist down following treatment.
'And what about you?' he said eventually. 'Any news?'
He might as well have shone a spotlight on Reinhardt.
'Well,' Reinhardt said, 'something very dramatic has happened since we last saw you. You've probably heard it on the news.'
'Dramatic?' Kjell was baffled.
'Jonas August Lowe,' Reinhardt explained. 'The boy whose body was found up in Linde Forest.'
Once the case was mentioned all four turned serious and it was a long time before anyone said anything.
'He was found by a couple out walking,' Reinhardt explained. 'A couple who go walking to Lake Linde every Sunday.'
Kjell shook his head in disbelief. 'You don't mean that you were the ones who found him?'
Reinhardt planted his elbows on the table. 'Yes, indeed we were,' he said. 'And we've been questioned.'
'Why did they want to question you?' Kjell asked.
'Because we saw a man up there and he was acting suspiciously, I'm certain of it. We passed him just by the barrier and now the police are looking for him. They say he is a witness, obviously, but that's what they always say. Personally, I thought he looked guilty as sin.'
'Perhaps he was just out for a walk, like you were,' Kjell suggested.
'But hardly anyone ever goes there,' Reinhardt objected. 'Besides, he looked very agitated.'
'So tell us more,' Irmelin begged.
'We had reached the lake,' he said, 'and were on our way back to the car. We were walking through the forest and there he was, lying on his stomach, face down. It wasn't difficult to see what had happened to him, if you know what I mean.'
He paused to let his words sink in and take effect.
'We couldn't believe our eyes,' he said. 'I called 112 and it took them twenty minutes to get up there. Kristine was shaking like a leaf.'
'But the man by the barrier,' Irmelin asked. 'Have you seen him before?'
'Never,' Reinhardt said.
'He was walking in a funny way,' Kristine said. 'I mean, he wasn't limping, but he was dragging one leg. When he walked he had to swing it in front of the other.'
'My guess is he has a false leg,' Reinhardt said. 'If he ends up in court, we'll probably have to give evidence.'
Kjell shook his head in disbelief. 'Well, that's what you'll be hoping for, I know you. For Christ's sake, Reinhardt, all you did was see a man in the forest. Get over yourself.'
'Perhaps we just startled him,' Kristine said. 'We did appear out of nowhere.'
Reinhardt gave a surly grunt. 'You would like to think so, wifey, but the truth will out one day.'
'But had he been strangled or what?' Irmelin asked.
'We don't know,' Kristine whispered.
'Did you try to find a pulse?'
'No,' Reinhardt said. 'There was no need for all that. His skin was turning blue, you know, marbled. I could tell instantly that he was dead.'
'Please can we change the subject?' Kristine pleaded.
Reinhardt looked at her across the table. 'It's actually very important to get these things out into the open,' he said. 'It's important to talk about them to get them out of your system.'
'But you don't want them out of your system.'
Reinhardt tossed his head. 'Listen,' he said sternly, 'I can talk about whatever I like. Do you have a problem with that?'
Irmelin and Kjell exchanged glances and Kristine fell silent. Then she got up and went out into the kitchen to make coffee. Irmelin followed her.
'I can't bear to hear him go on about it any longer, I'm trying to forget,' she whispered. She was making filter coffee, but had forgotten to count the measures of ground coffee. Irmelin looked at her with compassion; she, too, was appalled at the murder. This was not merely something they had read about in the paper, this was real to them.
'Do you know what he did?' Kristine whispered. 'He took pictures up there with his mobile.'
'What?' Irmelin's jaw dropped.
'He squatted down and took a load of pictures.'
'Not of the boy, surely?'
'Yes. And I bet he's showing them to Kjell.'
They listened towards the living room. The men had lowered their voices, but they could hear Kjell's deep bass and Reinhardt's tenor.
'I'm really scared he'll show them at work, too, that he'll sit in the canteen with his mobile showing them to all and sundry. You know what he's like.'
Irmelin fixed her with a stare.
