them. He always tied a double knot. In winter, when we were kids, we had to pour warm water on those knots to untie them.’
He turned away for a moment. He could see the river from the window and while no help could be found there, he needed some breathing space. The way they obsessed about minor things aggravated him, as though it was he who had driven Jon over the edge or as if somehow he could explain to them how suicidal people behave during their final hour.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m not an expert. Perhaps he was unable to go to sleep and he might just have wanted to go for a walk initially, that was why he got dressed properly. And then something overwhelmed him, something broke him. Some sort of despondency or a melancholy which got too much for him. After all, he did suffer from anxiety.’
‘Yes,’ Sejer said, ‘that is a possibility. That something overcame him later and it all happened very quickly. First he gets dressed with military precision and then he jumps off a cliff.’
Axel was not sure what Sejer was thinking. His lined face did not reveal much, apart from scepticism.
Skarre looked up from his notepad. ‘There’s another detail which baffles us,’ he said. ‘I’m talking about the fact that Jon could not swim. But we found him quite far out. One hundred metres from shore, to be precise. How did he get that far?’
Axel was slightly taken aback.
‘I imagine that he drifted for a while,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’
‘There’s no current in that lake,’ Skarre said.
‘I don’t think it’s up to me to explain this,’ Axel said, ‘as you are well aware. I work in advertising. I don’t know about such things.’
‘Right,’ Sejer said. ‘That’s our job. Isn’t it, Skarre?’
‘It is our job,’ Skarre agreed.
Sejer retrieved something from his inside pocket and Axel recognised Jon’s mobile. Axel knew that Jon had a photo of a small white dog on the display.
‘We’ve obviously got the phone records,’ Sejer explained. He started pressing the keys.
‘Sent box,’ he said. ‘Friday 13th September, text sent to Molly Gram, just before ten o’clock in the evening. Molly was Jon’s girlfriend at Ladegarden,’ he added. ‘Did you know that he had a girlfriend?’
Axel could feel his composure trickle away.
‘“Hi Molly. Trying to cope up here in the cabin. My anxiety seems to get worse when I’m away from the hospital. Hope I make it. Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday. Love, Jon.”’
Sejer returned the mobile to his inside pocket.
‘This text wasn’t sent by someone planning to kill himself,’ he stated.
‘Jon might not have been thinking about it when he sent the message,’ Axel said. ‘Something must have happened in the course of the night.’
‘Did he feel threatened?’
‘By us, you mean?’ Axel said. ‘We’re his best friends.’
‘He was looking forward to Sunday,’ Skarre said. ‘But he never came back to Ladegarden. He didn’t make it. What do you think happened to him?’
‘Jon was very volatile,’ Axel explained. ‘His mood changed from one hour to the next, up and down, like a roller coaster. The guy was worn out. You won’t be able to find a logical explanation for what happened.’
Sejer and Skarre exchanged looks. Simultaneously they got up from the sofa and prepared to leave.
CHAPTER 7
Reilly was standing in the doorway holding the kitten.
His pale skin was covered with thin, red claw marks.
‘Come on,’ Axel said. ‘We need to go and see Ingerid.’
‘Do we have to?’
‘Yes, we do. We can’t put it off any longer, she’s expecting us. She probably has a lot of questions, so we have to make up something which sounds plausible. About that evening. What Jon said and did, how he was, all the little details that she’ll want to know. How are you?’ he asked. ‘You’re not high, I hope?’
Reilly grunted a reply. He went back inside the flat, a tiny studio on the fourth floor. His bed was unmade.
‘I need to feed the kitten first,’ he said.
Axel followed. He slammed the door shut.
‘Forget about the kitten,’ he said. ‘Have you gone mad? We need to leave now. The situation is getting a bit tense,’ he added. ‘The police are all over this with a diligence I’ve never seen before. You would think it was our fault Jon ended up in the lake.’
‘Perhaps it was,’ Reilly said.
He went over to the kitchen counter. He filled the kitten’s bowl with fresh water and opened a tin of cat food. He mashed the food, which consisted of chunks of meat in gravy, with a fork until it turned into a smooth grey and brown mush. He carried out these simple tasks with great care and he did not permit Axel to interrupt him.
‘Now don’t pee on the carpet,’ he told the kitten. ‘Do your business in the litter tray.’
‘Snap out of it,’ Axel said. ‘We need to go.’
Reilly leaned against the kitchen counter. His long hair was unwashed and hung in thin strands over his shoulders.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said. ‘You go on your own. With your big mouth you can do the talking for both of us.’
Axel grunted irritably.
‘I can’t take care of everything,’ he said. ‘I’m exhausted. Now get a grip.’
Reilly put on his long coat. He threw a last, worried glance at the kitten and followed Axel. The old stairs creaked as they walked down to the ground floor. Shortly afterwards they were driving through the town in Axel’s Mercedes, scarab green with gorgeous white leather seats. As always it was newly washed and polished. Reilly watched the world through its windows and the people they passed. We’re not like them, he thought, we lack decency. We lack a normal sense of justice.
He pondered these things for a while.
‘What do you think it is about us?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’ Axel said.
‘I mean, that we did what we did. Does it mean that we’re not quite right?’
‘What are you on about now?’ Axel asked.
‘Well, you know, there’s something called emotional intelligence,’ Reilly elaborated. ‘Empathy. Understanding. Conscience. Remorse. The ability to comprehend the consequences of your actions. Some people have low emotional intelligence.’
This caused Axel to brake so abruptly that the tyres screeched. He pulled over and stopped the car.
‘Are you saying that there is something wrong with me?’ he said. ‘That I don’t have feelings like other people? Are you saying that I’m not grieving? That I have low emotional intelligence just because Jon threw himself into the lake?’
Reilly retreated slightly. ‘To be honest, I’m not really sure,’ he said.
‘There is nothing wrong with my emotional intelligence,’ Axel snapped. ‘Jesus, what an idea! You’ve got to quit that reading of yours, it’s doing your head in.’
‘But most people would not have acted the way we did,’ he wailed.
Axel checked his mirror and pulled out into the road again.
‘Most people don’t end up in that kind of situation,’ he said, ‘and I won’t listen to any more talk like that.’
‘But I’ve got such a bad conscience.’
‘I don’t understand this fuss about conscience,’ Axel said. ‘It’s not like you can take a clear conscience with you to your grave.’
Reilly felt like saying something about conscience. It stays behind after we die, he thought, like light or like
