‘How deep is it?’ he asked.
‘Don’t know,’ Axel said.
‘Have you touched the boat?’
‘No.’
Sejer squatted down. ‘I’m asking because I can see that someone has moved it,’ he said. ‘It used to lie higher up, there are marks in the grass.’
We did not see those, Reilly thought, because it was dark. We did not even think about them. That’s it, we’re going to get caught.
Sejer wandered up and down the shore; Skarre walked alongside him. They conferred quietly with each other.
‘This is the only place you can wade into the water,’ Sejer observed. ‘If Jon walked into the lake, then this is where he did it. The rocks on the other side look inaccessible. Or what do you think?’
‘How do you get up into the mountains?’ Skarre asked.
‘From the other side,’ Reilly explained. ‘It’s a long way. And it’s very steep.’
He closed his mouth. It was best to shut up and let the police draw their conclusions in peace. When the whole miserable business came to light one day, they would just have to deal with it then. Sejer talked to the divers and agreed on an approximate point where Jon might lie.
‘If he’s in the water at all. There are other possibilities,’ Sejer said.
The rubber dinghy was launched and the divers waded into the water. The Red Cross team would search the forest area around the lake. Abel the Alsatian strained on his leash, keen to get going. The divers were now some distance out and one of them had gone under with a powerful torch. When their work was well under way and the search party had disappeared into the sheep fields, Sejer asked to see where Jon had been sleeping. They returned to the cabin. Axel opened the door to the smallest bedroom. The room was almost bare, with red gingham curtains, a small bedside table and a paraffin lamp. On the wall hung a photo of the King and Queen of Norway. Axel pointed to the sleeping bag. It was green with orange lining and lay in a messy heap on the foam mattress. A blue nylon bag was leaning against the wall.
‘Is that Jon’s bag?’
They nodded.
‘What time did he go to bed?’
‘It was around midnight. Or what do you think, Reilly?’
‘Midnight,’ Reilly mumbled.
‘You said he was quiet last night? That he was quieter than usual?’ Sejer asked.
‘He was very depressed,’ Axel explained, ‘and has been for a long time: that was why he had been admitted to Ladegarden. Jon is a worrier, he can’t handle very much. We should not have let him sleep on his own,’ he added. ‘I don’t know what we were thinking.’
A flash of anguish crossed his face. He is in control of every single muscle, Reilly thought.
‘Do you know why he fell ill?’ Skarre asked.
They shook their heads.
‘People get ill,’ Axel said. ‘It happens.’
‘Did it happen suddenly?’
‘I suppose it was gradual.’
‘And when did it start?’
Reilly felt like giving up right there and then. They would want to know everything. They would talk to Jon’s mother and his friends, the staff at the hospital and his colleagues at Siba Computers, where he had worked over the past year, and everyone would add a piece to the puzzle. All the police would have to do was put them together.
I need to get high, he thought.
‘It started last winter,’ Axel said.
He had decided to tell the truth as far as possible. Other people would remember that was when it had started. It was a question of being one step ahead.
‘He was having trouble sleeping. It must have been around Christmas. He lost weight. He was off sick from work. In spring it got worse; eventually he couldn’t manage even the simplest things and he spent the whole summer in bed. We went to visit him a couple of times, but he turned his face to the wall and wouldn’t talk to us. He was admitted four weeks ago. We’ve been so worried,’ Axel said, ‘and we don’t know what’s happened, but we fear the worst.’
‘Let’s not meet trouble halfway,’ Sejer said.
‘It usually works out all right,’ Skarre said.
Four hours later they found the body of Jon Moreno.
The rubber dinghy was pulled ashore and the search in the forest was called off. The Alsatian padded over the grass, alert, its ears pricked up. Axel and Reilly went down to the lake to see Jon. Axel with the solemnity befitting a man in mourning, Reilly with downcast eyes and trembling hands.
Jon was lying on a stretcher. Never before had he looked so small, so defenceless. Reilly turned away and took a few steps towards the forest. Poor Jon. Consumed with guilt and shame. The next instant he felt bitter because he would have to bear this torment until the day he died. And even worse, it dawned on him, Ingerid Moreno would ask them to be pall-bearers. From now on they would have to pretend. They would have to fake it for the rest of their lives, weigh up every single word, calculate every gesture, every glance.
He stopped and looked back. It was not easy to see that it was Jon lying on the stretcher, it was just a skinny carcass with the face of a stranger. How much death takes from us, he pondered – warmth, colour and vitality. Now there is only wet, grey skin over sharp bones. Axel went over to the stretcher. He fell to his knees and mumbled a few words which the wind carried in Reilly’s direction.
‘Sorry, Jon, for not taking better care of you.’
They were told to come to the police station.
Axel closed the windows in the cabin and Reilly cleared up the rooms. All the way back to town he sat with the cake tin on his lap as he fretted about what the police would do to them. Axel insisted it would be a mere formality. Everything would be over and done with in a matter of minutes.
‘What more can we say apart from what we’ve already told them?’ he said. ‘Jon went to bed around midnight and that was the last we saw of him. We’ve just simplified events. They can’t pin anything on us. What evidence is there?’
Reilly stroked the kitten. They did not talk much the rest of the way because ultimately no words could express what had happened.
Three hours later they parked outside the police station. They had to wait in reception. Again Reilly voiced his concerns about everything that could go wrong.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Axel reassured him. ‘It’s a straightforward story. It’s impossible to screw it up.’
Reilly became aware of two people crossing the room. One of them seemed familiar. He gripped Axel’s arm.
‘It’s Ingerid,’ he whispered.
Reilly had known that this was something they would have to get through, but it was happening sooner than he had imagined, and he hadn’t had time to prepare himself. Ingerid Moreno was accompanied by a female police officer and now she spotted them. She collapsed and started sobbing. Axel shot up from his seat.
‘We didn’t know he was in such a bad way,’ he said. ‘If we had known, we would have taken better care. And if the hospital had known about his intentions, they would not have given him permission to leave for the weekend. Ingerid. Listen to me. None of us could have foreseen this.’
Ingerid Moreno nodded and wiped away her tears. Reilly remained in his seat without saying anything. Ingerid did not appear to see him. She was caught in the light which always surrounded Axel. If Axel could act so convincingly, with such apparent sincerity, how often had he himself been deceived? What was the basis of their friendship? Was it all just one big lie, a star performance?
‘You must come and visit me some time,’ Ingerid pleaded. ‘We need to talk. Please.’
‘We’ll come,’ Axel said. ‘There is so much we want to tell you. All the things we shared with Jon. Which you don’t know about.’
